


Fallout

by Rakuyou_Tenshi (Citrus_Luver)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alpha Leonard McCoy, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Attempted Abortion, Double Anal Penetration, Dubious Consent, Forced Pregnancy, Foursome - M/M/M/M, Kink Meme, Knotting, M/M, Mpreg, Omega James T. Kirk, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness, Public Relations, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-03-20 20:31:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 37,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3663987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Citrus_Luver/pseuds/Rakuyou_Tenshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim is an omega who refuses to submit.  Bones is an alpha who decided a long time ago to never do it with his best friend... again.</p><p>However, after the Khan fiasco, Jim's body betrays him.  He goes to Bones, the only alpha he can trust.  When Bones leaves him pregnant and Starfleet forbids him from terminating, Jim and Bones must deal with the fallout.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at the alpha/beta/omega dynamics. Actually I did not even know what this was until recently, so I apologize in advance for any inaccuracies. I tried doing as much research as possible into the area before writing this.
> 
> Also this is a fill for a prompt found on the LJ's Buckle-up meme.
> 
> The prompt is actually super long, and I severely condescend it in the summary. The full version can be found [here](http://buckleup-meme.livejournal.com/7569.html?thread=1536145#t1536145). However, be warned as it does give away a lot of the major plot points.

It wasn't that Jim Kirk didn't comprehend how the world functioned.  He knew everyone needed a role in society for it to operate suitably.

Earth of yore had been built on categorization and conformity.  Earth's civilizations since the dawn of time were based around the ideals that everyone could neatly and easily fit into one of three groups.  These archetypes translated over during the foundation of the Federation.

For Earthlings this was easy, for biologically the differences could be detected.  There were the alphas, who were believed to be the leaders, the revolutionaries, the dominant breed. Then there were the betas, who were believed to be the everyday man and woman, the average blue and white collared workers who kept society operating.  Finally there were the omegas who were believed to be the nurturers, the teachers, the caretakers.

However, most perceptive life forms in the universe did not possess these three distinct biological classifications.   

For the groups that did not, this idea of genetic ordering was heavily divided.  Vulcans found it to be extremely logical after cohabiting for years on Earth while 'guiding' humanity in refining its warp drive.  They found it to be a proficient mode of outlining an organism's station in life.  While other alien races profoundly rejected this viewpoint, they deemed it as a transgression against free will. 

Initially the proponents against genetic categorization were scarce.  But with faster warp drives and the further humanity traveled through the cosmos; these opinions became more prevalent.  The original epitomes started to disintegrate.  More and more believed that a child's destiny ought not to be predetermined at conception.

Nevertheless, these radical principles were just murmurs in small, rural towns where everyone knew everyone, where space travel was one of the furthest things from its denizens’ thoughts.

Jim Kirk was scarcely thirteen when he received his label and with it a handbook containing a list of professions for him to select from along with all the biological and genetic intricacies that he would unavoidably have to overcome.  

However, thirteen-year-old Jim Kirk only stared at the blood red words on the top right corner of the document which glowered back at him.  

_Omega_

He was fucking furious. He knew what being an omega meant. His mother was an omega, and he dealt with the repercussions of her label every day.  His father's death destroyed her.  From the few holo-videos he watched of bygone days, he knew Winona Kirk had once been a vibrant, full of life woman. 

Now, she was a hollow shell reduced to groveling at the feet of men and women during her monthly heats.  As a result, she unavoidably accrued a long string of men and women over the years to fill an unfillable void.  Some of these encounters disappeared immediately while others stayed around.  

The ones that stayed, she married, while others had left her 'gifts', which she always took care of.  It would be many years before Jim learned what that meant, and even longer for him to learn where she had gone to get the procedures done.

He was living with his older brother Sam, who was sixteen and classified as a beta, and their ninth 'stepfather' Frank on his farm in the outskirts of Riverside, Iowa.  Their mother had left six months earlier on a Starfleet assignment.  She grabbed them when she felt better, or when she couldn't stand to see her sons who looked too much like the love of her life.  It also meant Frank would soon be out of the picture, and that was fine with Jim.  He hated Frank.   

When Sam ran away that spring morning, the same morning Jim underwent his first heat.   Jim stole that pretty red 1965 Chevy convertible and drove it over the quarry.  

As he sat in the police station with bruises on his arms and legs, he was flabbergasted to discover his heat had gone away.  His blood no longer boiled.  He no longer wanted to kneel before the first alpha he could find just because his genes forced him.

At that moment, Jim Kirk experienced what he had once assumed to be a 'no-win' scenario and won.  He created his own loophole.  He discovered that an extreme adrenaline rush was enough to repress his heat.

And Jim, being Jim, pounced on this discovery.  At thirteen, he decided he would never beg before an alpha just because his genes commanded it.  He wasn't going to go into blood lust like his mother had and leave behind a string of husbands, lovers, and broken children.

Consequentially, by the time Captain Christopher Pike found him in that tiny bar with blood gushing from his nostrils, he had amassed a long string of offenses.  

Pike looked at him disapprovingly and for a fleeting moment Jim wondered if this was the look that a displeased father gives his son.  

Jim scoffed when Pike stated that he had what it takes to be a Starfleet captain.  Jim wanted to laugh.  He was a fucking omega.  That meant at best he could be was a doctor or a nurse, definitely not a Starfleet captain.

As Jim opened his mouth to contradict this man, Pike simply slid a hypo spray across the table.  The words ‘heat suppressant’ glared jeeringly back at him.  He almost sneered as he crossed his arms.  "I'm allergic.”  He almost hoped for an ephemeral second that Pike was a miracle worker. 

"I read your file, Kirk.  You're only allergic to some of the compounds in a standard heat suppressant.  This does not possess any of those ingredients."  Pike smirked, that smirk that Jim would grow to hate.  "Stop using your genetics as an excuse. I see greatness in you, a greatness that Starfleet is severely lacking."

And that was how Jim Kirk ended up in Starfleet and where he began to believe that genetic status did not matter.

When he was given command of the USS Enterprise, Starfleet’s flagship, he really thought the world had finally decided to stop shitting on him.

However after Khan, after he died in that warp core and then brought back to life, it all came crashing down...


	2. Chapter 2

His blood burned. His skin ached. His hole became slick. It was widening... waiting for an alpha's voluptuous cock to burrow inside.

_Fuck!_

It had been years since this had transpired, not since that day he crashed that car. He couldn't drive another car off a precipice. He was a captain now. He couldn't be that irresponsible, young man anymore.

Jim sat on the very edge of his bed, trying to clench onto his sanity. The quietest of sounds and the faintest of smells made him crazy. It was nature’s way of preventing extinction.

He gripped the corners of his bedsheets. He dug in deep to anchor himself to reality. His body wanted to submit. A tiny morsel of his mind was screaming no.

They cautioned him the first time he treaded into Starfleet Medical. Everything in life comprised of some form of fine print, and Christopher Pike had neglected to mention the strings that night at the bar.

The heat suppressant was highly experimental and virtually untested. The tiniest of imbalances could cause the ingredients to become inert. When it failed, all the years of heat suppression would come crashing down, and nothing but an alpha's knot would be able to quell it.

Twenty-two-year-old Jim Kirk had been a cocky bastard. He was high on life and thought he could beat the odds. He lived and breathed by the ideologies that there were no ‘no-win’ scenarios.

‘I won’t let it.’ Jim declared to a room full of Starfleet doctors. Jim saw the look on their faces. The identical look he received countless times already in his life that it was as normal as breathing. They couldn’t comprehend why an omega would chose to go through the command track.

When he had climbed into the radioactive warp core, he knew the risks. He knew it would take all his luck and more to survive, but at that moment all he could think about was saving his family… his crew. Maybe in the end, he was more of an omega than he ever thought. His omega instincts had kicked in when it mattered.

_But fuck..._

His heat wasn’t for another month. He knew because he had the fucking date circled on his calendar. It fucking alerted him a week in advance.

However as he sat on his bed in only his boxers, his skin glistening from sweat, he knew he was going into heat. He glanced around the room, fidgety and alert. He knew his pupils were blown. He felt like a deer in those proverbial headlights. Everything looked brighter and bolder. It felt like everything up until that moment had been a dream, and he was finally waking up from it.

_Shit!_

There wasn't a lack of alphas in San Francisco. San Francisco was brimming with alphas. Even Starfleet had amassed a large collection. The command track housed a large fraction of them. Jim knew because he had slept with most of them.

The suppressants had the added benefit of letting him present as a beta. Most of his classmates just saw him as the odd beta who was trying to follow in George Kirk’s footsteps. That was only accepted by Starfleet because of Christopher Pike’s glowing recommendation and his father’s heroics.

Jim never tried correcting these misconceptions, and they probably would have continued were it not for Nero. He would have climbed the slow and painful chain of command to the captain’s seat as he had promised Pike so long ago in Riverside Shipyard.

However, sex was an entirely different story. Classmates and strangers that he picked up along the waif were all willing to have sex: good, bad and boring, with him. He had them all, and Jim was fine with that because he was in control. He could say ‘no’ if he wanted to, and that made all the difference in the world.

The suppressants allowed him to never have to grovel at a stranger or a classmate for sex.

And he definitely didn’t want to now…

Even though Starfleet and the Federation weren't flaunting it, after the Nero and Khan fiascos, Jim's omega status was no longer Starfleet’s ‘best kept’ secret. Along with the backlash from the purists when he first received his commission, the radicals saw him as an emblem for change. The youngest Starfleet captain in history was an omega.

No matter how hard Starfleet tried, it couldn’t stop the inundation of messages he was constantly receiving from alphas and betas who wanted him. Some were sickening sweet proposals while others were down right possessive. Theoretically, he could call any one of these people, and they would give him his or her cock.

But Jim didn’t trust any of them. Life taught him that _most_ alphas are assholes.

However biology was a stronger force.

All of Jim’s constitution wasn’t enough, and for once Jim Kirk had to submit. He was trembling and hurting for a release that his right hand couldn’t provide by the time he grabbed his communicator and dialed that all too familiar number.

When he heard that all too familiar dial tone, he was wondering if he should be doing this, if it would change everything…

However, when he heard that familiar voice, a voice that somehow became a constant in his life he knew he had made the correct choice.

"'Ones?"

He heard the worry in his friends' voice. He barely had a chance to close his communicator before the door to his apartment slid open.

He watched the emotions on his friends' flicker from worry... to that of the possessive, ready to pounce look. It was the textbook look that an alpha in the presence of an omega in heat possessed. It was also a look he had never seen on his best friend's face before, especially directed at him.

In a small corner of his mind, Jim was vaguely wondering if he should be angry or relieved that even Bones wasn’t fighting biology. That he wouldn’t have to persuade Bones to help him.

As Bones stepped inside the room, his scent became all encompassing. He smelt of peaches and bourbon mixed with fresh grass. It was Georgia. It was Bones. It was familiarity.

It was safe.

Bones always made him feel safe.

And that wayward thought vanished from Jim’s mind.

The communicator slipped from Jim's hands. He didn't even notice as he stood up. It was like an explosion. It was like a gravitational pull. It was like ionic bonding as their bodies clashed together in Jim's bedroom.

Bones had met him halfway. Bones always met him halfway.

The moonbeams blasted through the windows. They filtered through the window blinds and cascaded long shimmer of light against their pale, toned bodies.

In a whirlwind of motion and limbs, Jim pulled Bones' medical uniform off his sweat covered body as Bones ran his fingers, the steadiest hands of all of Starfleet, through Jim's.

They didn't speak. They barely even recognized each other for at that moment it wasn't Jim and Bones in that room but an alpha and omega. Jim gasped as Bones pushed him against the wall.

He pinned his hands over his head with his own. They were strong and sturdy. His grip was hard and forceful.

Their lips mashed together. Teeth clattered against each other. Their tongues twisted together. They kissed with an urgency, with a longing… with a need. As if, if they didn't, the world would explode on them.

Sounds that Jim never knew he could make left his lips as Bones pushed forward. Bones’ cock was achingly hard. As it brushed against his thighs, Jim could already feel the formation of that telltale alpha knot.

With a strength that Jim didn't know Bones even possessed, he was flipped around. His chest hit the whitewashed wall. The picture frames that hung nearby wobbled on their hooks.

He gasped as Bones pushed into his slick hole... wide and wet and ready to be taken. As Bones' massive member sank in, a field of colors exploded through Jim's eyes. He felt like he would go over.

However just as he was about to, Bones, the bastard, pulled out, so that only the tip, wet from his own pre-cum and Jim's juices, brushed against the opening.

Before he could protest, he felt Bones push back inside. He reached behind him, his arms flailed around before brushing against Bones' toned chest. They circled around to Bones' broad back, and he pulled forward till Bones' flesh was against his. They were so close that it would be impossible to determine where one ended and another began.

He felt Bones' teeth sink into the side of his neck. He heard that possess grunt leave Bones’ lips as he rolled his hips in that tantalizingly slow circular motion. His own cock was achingly hard and weeping onto the walls. He rutted against it, forcibly moving Bones with him, hoping, praying Bones would speed up.

He felt the telltale bulbous knot enlarge and fill him up… hard and tight, binding them together until the inevitable release.

Jim gasped as it got larger and larger until the entire base was firmly stoppered against his inner rings. He squirmed under the sheer size of Bones' knot. His perineum skin was red and burning from the knot on one side and Bones’ sac on the other.

Again, Bones possessively growled into his ear. His Adam's apple pulsated with each sound that left his lips as he pushed harder against his back... pinning him further against the wall.

_God..._

His vision exploded as Bones hit a particularly tender flap of skin... a portion of his body that he rarely thought about.

He lurched backwards as Bones pushed forward.

The contact was enough to send Bones over the edge. He came with a sudden jerk. A flood of potent fluids blasted into his tiny hole. The force took Jim over the edge as his own cock, massive but miniscule in comparison to Bones', sputtered out a long trail of liquid against the sweat stained walls. He felt Bones collapse against his back. He too was heavy and wet from perspiration. His breath was just as ragged as Bones'.

They did not speak as they waited for Bones' knot to deflate. The only sounds in the room were their heavy panting and the slow monotonous ticking from the hands of Jim's antique clock.

He must have counted hundreds and thousands of seconds before Bones finally pulled away with a loud pop.

"Fuck... Jim..."

Those words were enough to clear the rest of Jim's muddled head. He grimaced at how sore he felt as he turned around. Bones proceeded to untangled their bodies. His limbs felt like lead as he collapsed onto the floor. He pulled his legs up against his chest and looked up at Bones.

He was met by extreme mortification and horror as if they had just committed some mortal sin.

And maybe… they had…

Bones pressed the palms of hands against his eyes. "Jim... I... Fuck..." The words died on Bones' lips. He took a deep, long breath. "I... I should go before..."

The unspoken words, 'before the next cycle', died on the tip of his lips because they both knew there would be another cycle and another and another...

Just thinking about it made the flesh on Jim's skin itch.

Bones turned on his heels. As he reached for his wayward pants, Jim reached out. Something he realized he had been doing for years since that fateful shuttle ride out of Riverside. He closed his hand around Bones' wrist.

"Jim?"

"Don't go." Jim almost cringed at how quiet, how small his voice sounded at that moment. At that moment, he definitely fit the stereotype of an obedient, meek omega willing to throw himself before an alpha.

It was a sound he hoped to never have to make again.

_Just this once…_

Bones' expression softened. "Okay Jim... Okay."


	3. Chapter 3

It was only when he was halfway back to his own apartment a week later, a week of unadulterated, mind numbing sex that everything came crashing down around him.

Leonard McCoy had broken the one rule that he had set for himself.

For five years Leonard McCoy's life revolved around it.  It dictated his every action and most of all kept him from fucking everything up again because he had definitely been there before.

_Never fuck your best friend._

In one week, he had broken that rule not once but more times than he could remember or count.  The slight limp that he was sporting and the numerous marks and bruises that covered his body were additional testaments of his transgressions.  

 _Fuck_!

He still smelt like Jim.

Jim Kirk...

James Tiberius Kirk was the bane of existence for nearly four years, going on five.  He had been since that fateful shuttle ride out of Riverside, Iowa on that hot, muggy summer day.

At the time, Leonard had been absolutely sure that Jim was an alpha.  He wasn’t one for stereotypes and hated the whole labeling system.  Because he was a fucking alpha and he sure as hell didn’t fit the definition.

The cocky bastard with that smirk on his face as he grabbed his hip flask before introducing himself as ‘Jim Kirk’ on the other hand had been the classic definition of an alpha.  He fit the classification like a glove: strong, assertive, and aggressive.  The kid was a natural born leader, and at the time Leonard thought he had found a friend.

It wasn't until many weeks later after they had both settled into their roles at Starfleet Academy: Jim in command and Leonard in medical, that Leonard discovered just how ironic and fucking cynical the world could be.

The night when Jim bruised and battered, claiming he had gotten into a fight, appeared before him at Starfleet Medical.  Up until that point, Leonard had never treated Jim.  Jim had always been gone to Boyce or Phlox which had surprised Leonard.  His medical records were sealed.  So when Leonard pulled up Jim's shirt, he saw Jim's eyes widen and his hand reach for his wrist, seconds before his own widened in shock.  

Leonard had been the first to look away.  It was glaringly obvious what the slight bulge against Jim's chest cavity was.  To the untrained eye, it could easily be glossed over as imperfection.

His face burned red.  Just a week before, Leonard had been ranting about Starfleet Medical’s latest rounds of heat suppressant technology.   

Leonard found heat suppressants to be a crime against humanity.  He was all for birth control and family planning, but he firmly believed heat suppressants were playing with nature and evolution.  He cited the ill effects: mutations, potential organ failure, and infertility as a mirage of reasons against using them.  

All those times, Jim had never said anything.  He always let Leonard continue his rant.  At that moment, Leonard wished he could crawl into a deep hole and just die. He was running through a million ways to apologize in his head when Jim broke the silence.  

"Sometimes it's the only choice, Bones.”  

It would be a long time later before Leonard learned about the workings of Jim Kirk and even then he would constantly, constantly be surprised.

He learned that Jim Kirk was a 'no strings, no emotions, just sex' type of guy. Because even though Jim didn't go into heat, he loved sex.  He had a string of 'conquests' at the academy from visiting dignitaries' daughters to fellow cadets to random people off the street.  

Jim Kirk does not commit.

It was also around that time that Leonard McCoy realized he had fallen head over heels in love with said omega.  He knew if he ever, asked Jim would have said yes, but Leonard had his own baggage, his own demons.  

As much as he didn’t want to be another notch on Jim’s bed post.  He also wanted Jim, all of Jim, for only himself. 

There was also his past.  He had fallen in love with his best friend once before.  To one Jocelyn Darnell, they had been friends since they were toddlers.  Their parents thought it was the cutest thing in the world.  When Leonard presented as an alpha and Jocelyn as an omega, it seemed like destiny.  

Their parents were planning joint vacations, grandbabies, weddings and houses by the time they were entering high school.  

They had a fairy tale wedding in a white church on a midsummer's day.  They were the textbook definition of happiness and perfection before everything came crashing down.

As a result, the day Leonard signed his divorce papers, he made his rule.  

_Never fuck your best friend._

And he had just spectacularly and pitifully broken that rule.  The moment, he smelled Jim's scent.  The moment he saw Jim’s fluids seeping down his leg from his tight little hole, Leonard McCoy had lost control.

Fucking Jim was like a drug.  It was everything and more than Leonard had ever wanted, and now that he had experienced it for a week, he wasn't sure how he could go without it.

They molded together.  It seemed Jim's hole was shaped just for Leonard.  He had never felt such pleasure... such warmth... such exhilaration as when he pounded inside of Jim Kirk.  Jim's little moans and groans... the way his eyes got even bluer as he reached his apex.

Leonard wasn't sure how he could ever look Jim in the eyes again... as friends.  He wanted Jim.  He loved Jim.  He wanted Jim to be his.

Because Leonard McCoy knew he couldn't have any of those things, he did the next best thing.  Instead he drowned himself in alcohol and work...for eight long weeks. For eight long weeks, he managed to miraculously avoid Jim. 

It was also the longest eight weeks of Leonard McCoy’s life. 

At night he was plagued by dreams of taking Jim again and again.  He dreamt of Jim’s scent, of his eyes, of his lips, and his kisses.  He woke up every morning hot and sticky, and with all the conviction he needed to avoid Jim for another day.      

When the ninth week rolled in, Leonard had long emptied out his alcohol cabinet and had accumulated too many hours at Starfleet Medical. Leonard was starting to realize the déjà vu of it all.

It was another two days before he decided he needed to go talk to Jim before he lost him forever… like with Jocelyn.  

Because being friends with Jim would be better than spending the rest of their lives as strangers because soon the distance would be irreparable.    

However it was at the same time an onslaught of patients came pouring into Starfleet Medical.  When the deluge finally dispelled, two more days had gone by.

He was tired and sore from pulling two double shifts.  All he wanted to do was crawl into his bed and sleep for a long, long time.

As a result, for once he wasn’t thinking about Jim and their problems.

Unfortunately, karma has a way of deciding otherwise.  

When Leonard rounded the corner to his apartment, the first thing he saw was Jim pacing in front of his door.

Jim never did that.  Not in all the years they had known each other.  Unlike a normal person, Jim would break into his quarters and wait for him inside, drinking his prize bourbon and lounging on his couch.

Because of that, he briefly entertained the notion that Jim was waiting for someone else, but that was ridiculous.  They barely knew the other occupants in this tower.  Hell, Leonard wasn't even sure if anyone else even lived on this floor.  He had never met any of his neighbors.

"Jim?"  Leonard asked hesitantly.  Even as the words left his lips, he realized he should never have taken so long.  That he shouldn’t have let the distance build up between them.

Jim looked startled when he turned to look at Leonard; however, it was quickly replaced by... anger?

Leonard wasn't sure he had ever seen Jim so livid before.  Sure, in the nearly five years they had known each other, Leonard had seen Jim angry before... just never this angry... and never with him.  He looked angrier than he had been during the whole Khan or Nero fiascoes.

Leonard briefly jerked his head.  He hoped Jim would understand.  

If this was the end of ... of their friendship, Leonard would rather it didn’t happen in the hallway on the off chance he did have neighbors.

Jim seemed to understand.  He waited as Leonard keyed in his code and then followed him inside.  He waited as Leonard toed off his boots and hung up his medical access card.  Leonard would never admit that he was stalling.  

When Jim didn't take the glass of whiskey that Leonard offered him, in fact he looked like the glass was the most offensive thing in the world, Leonard wondered just how far gone they were.

He rounded the corner of his barely used kitchen to his living room and sat down on the lumpy Starfleet issued standard couch.  He set both of their glasses on the coffee table.  

He watched as Jim stood on the other side.  His arms crossed.  He had a large frown on his face.  He was clutching a PADD.  Leonard wondered when Jim had pulled that out.  

He was about to ask Jim what was wrong when Jim dropped it unceremoniously on the table.  The glass rattled from the impact.  The whiskey in the two untouched glasses shook.

He inadvertently flinched.

"Jim?" He asked tentatively.

"God damn it Leonard McCoy.  You fucking asshole!"  

"Jim?" He was starting to sound like a badly tuned stereo.

"I thought you were a doctor."  Jim's voice was so icy cold.

"I am?" Leonard furrowed his eyebrows.

"Then what the fuck man!"  Jim slammed his hand down on top of the PADD screen.  Leonard looked down.  Although Jim’s hand hid most of the text, Leonard was familiar enough with the document to know what it was.   It was a complete medical workup.  His eyes widened at the numbers at the bottom.  He knew what those numbers meant having run these tests for many males and females.

"You're..."  

"You knocked me up Leonard McCoy!"  Jim practically roared.


	4. Chapter 4

Leonard McCoy could count the number of times his life went to hell on one hand. He remembered each and every one of them, and never, ever had it started like this.

The first had been when his mama died in a shuttlecraft, and he had been too helpless to prevent it. The second had been when his daddy got sick and requested that he help him die, and he couldn’t find the strength to say ‘no’. The third had been when his marriage ended, and Jocelyn took everything in the divorce. By then, he couldn’t find the will to try to fix it. The fourth had been when Jim's body was brought into med bay, dead and cold in that body bag, and for once he did fight.

And now, this moment would be the fifth…

He opened and closed his mouth. He felt like a fish gasping for water. His entire brain seemed to have shut down.

"Pregnant," Leonard finally managed to fumble out the word.

_Pregnant…_

_Jim Kirk was pregnant._

Even in his head, that sentence sounded almost laughable, as if it was taken out of a story book. This couldn’t be their life. This couldn’t be real.

“How?” The words slipped from Leonard’s lips before he could contain them. He saw Jim visibly flinch at that small three letter word.

“Are you fucking kidding?”

Leonard noted the malice in Jim’s voice. He looked positively vivid standing before him. His hand still pressed firmly onto the screen of his PADD. Leonard vaguely wondered how much pressure the screen could possibly take before shattering into a million pieces.

“And before you ask, I’m 1960% positive.”

Leonard couldn’t help it when his eyebrow involuntary rose upwards as looked at Jim. And at that moment, he really, really did look at Jim. He noted the subtle changes in his appearance. He noted how his face was already noticeably rounder. He was already developing the fabled ‘pregnancy glow’.

He gaze traveled further down to Jim’s abdomen. It was still relatively flat. He recognized the slight strain on his normally loose fitting uniform.

Then there was the scent. He hadn’t detected it in the hallway, but now that his mind finally caught back up with reality, he could discern the subtle transformation in Jim’s normally rustic and citric scent. In addition to Jim’s signature scent which had been ravaging his dreams for years now, there was also the hint of the smell of peaches, rolling hills and southern whiskey.

At that moment, Leonard knew. He fucking knew.

Jim Kirk was pregnant with his child. Jim was going to grow and swell with his young, the young that he had placed inside of him.

That thought scared him, excited him, and made him damn possessive.

For nearly half a decade, he had dreamt of being with Jim Kirk. However, never, ever had he thought about breeding his best friend. He never even came close to entertaining the inkling of Jim Kirk carrying his young, giving birth to his young, nurturing his young…

The image of a little boy with sapphire blue eyes and curly blond hair flashed into his mind.

_Their son…_

_Fuck..._

The more he thought about it. The more he drank in Jim’s scent. The more he realized that he wanted the baby. He wanted Jim to keep the baby. He needed it… them… like he needed air. He gasped out before taking in a large mouthful of air. He nearly choked on the sudden influx of Jim’s scent that gushed into his olfactory glands.

He immediately averted his gaze back upwards to find that a scowl was slowly forming on Jim’s face.

_Of fucking course…_

After nearly five years with Jim, it was clear that Jim definitely one hundred percent did not share his views.

For the same reason he had never acted on his desires. For the same reason when he stepped into that room so many weeks ago, his mind had screamed for him to bolt… to not do it… before nature took it all away.

James Tiberius Kirk does not commit. He cannot be tied down.

Jim deserves the stars. The same stars that he loved so much.

He has a bright, burning future ahead of him, one that does not include children.

He had known it for years.

But damn, he wanted this baby, the blue eyed, blond haired little boy that he could see in his mind.

By rights, he could force Jim to keep the baby. He was the alpha. Federation laws gave him that right. Even though this was the dawn of the twenty-third century, Federation laws concerning reproduction and pregnancy were still heavily biased towards alphas. The laws still reflected the archaic belief of an omega's place in society as the incubator for future generations.

In that manner, the Federation wasn’t that much better than its Ferengi brethren.

As a doctor, Leonard recognized the implications of these laws. It meant that back alley abortions were the one and most times only solution. Omegas flocked to them as the easy way out. It was the only solution to insure that it would be kept off record.

But this was Jim... his best friend.

"I don't want it." Jim stated. He crossed his arms and jutted out his hips. His sapphire blue eyes were blazing and burning.

And Leonard McCoy’s heart sank at those small, simple four words as they filtered out of Jim’s lips.

"I know the laws," Jim continued.

_Every omega knows them._

Leonard knew that. As a doctor, he had handed out his own share of ‘omega’ handbooks to teenagers back in Georgia.

"You can stop me." There was a slight edge in Jim’s voice. Leonard recognized it immediately as his negotiation voice. It was the one he used whenever one of their first contact missions went haywire.

It was a voice Leonard realized he had never dreamt of Jim using on him.

And really… that and all their years of friendship made the next words easier to say. "But you know I won't."

Jim was his friend.

He would never do that to Jim. No matter how much he wanted to. It couldn’t do it. He could never force Jim Kirk to stay pregnant for his own desires.

Even so, it still meant that Jim would inevitably have to get the procedure done 'off record'. Although abortions were technically not illegal as long as the alpha didn't protest, very few medical facilities sanctioned them. Starfleet Medical didn't. In fact, none of the hospitals in or near San Francisco performed them.

It was too close to Starfleet Headquarters, the center of exploration and alien relations. San Francisco was where alien dignitaries congregated, and with aliens of different beliefs aggregating together at this one location, it was better to err on the side of caution.

So unless Jim was planning on taking a shuttle, the only other option was a back alley abortion with dirty equipment and a high chance of infection.

And that furthered Leonard’s worry. He had just saved Jim from death, and the ramifications from that were still pending.

Another thing he hadn’t mentioned to Jim yet. Another item on a long list that someday he would have to tell him…

"Jim..."

Jim held up one finger. "Don't Bones."

Leonard opened his mouth to protest.

"You're not doing it. I'm not going to ruin you, Bones. If anyone finds out, you'll be ruined. No omega will ever mate with you."

_No omega will ever mate with you._

The words should have cut like a dagger because Leonard understood the secondary layer behind Jim’s words.

_Never again…_

For as much as Leonard wanted to scream, to yell, and to protest that Jim had already ruined him. That after knotting with Jim, there would never be another omega he could ever want again.

He wanted Jim. He had always wanted Jim. He had wanted him for nearly half a decade now. He wanted to fill Jim up with his seed again and again. He wanted to hear that loud pop when he pulled out of Jim’s slick, wet and hot hole. He wanted to tie a Jim Kirk who was big and full of his offspring to his bed post and fuck him senseless into his bed. He wanted to watch their baby kick and squirm against Jim's taut skin.

Most of all, he wanted to breed Jim over and over again. He wanted to break his rule time and time again for as long as he lived.

However Leonard McCoy rarely got what he wanted.

And at that moment and forever and always, Leonard McCoy would choose his friendship with Jim over his darkest desires.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains attempted abortion.

Jim left Bones' apartment ten minutes later and promptly headed out the main door of their apartment complex.

It was starting to get hotter.  Spring was nearing its end, and summer was right around the corner.

The air was misty and thick, an almost unbearable humidity that was rare in San Francisco.  The air felt stagnant and constricting.  It mirrored exactly how Jim was feeling.         

Because even as he rounded the corner of the apartment building, he still couldn’t say he was sure what he had been expecting.    

His life had practically ended two weeks ago when he first threw up on the way to Khan's trial.  He thought it was nerves or lack of sleep.  It was the first time he saw Khan after he betrayed and nearly killed them all.  He had been feeling off for days leading up to that moment.  His appetite had been off.  One day he was barely hungry, and the next he wanted to eat a ten course meal.

Then there was that one morning when he was changing into his workout clothes.  The fabric had brushed up against his chest which caused him to wince from the slight pain.  

His nipples were red and swollen.  At first, Jim attributed it to a minor agitation due to his shirt rubbing up against his chest and had thought nothing of it.

It wasn't until he threw up that the pieces clicked together.  As he was hovering over the toilet bowl in Starfleet Headquarters, he vaguely remembered the words he had read years ago.  When he first received his omega handbook, he had read it.  He read about the heats, puberty, pregnancy, childbirth, nesting and nursing.

At thirteen, without any paternal support, it had just made him more confused and angrier at the world.  He didn’t want a baby, nor was he ever planning on having any.   So he sure as hell didn’t need the equipment or nuisances associated with it.

However at twenty-six, Jim wasn't stupid.  He knew how to piece everything together.  He flushed the toilet, rinsed out his mouth in the sink, and walked out of that bathroom.  

But it would still take Jim nearly a week to build up the courage to walk to the nearest drug store for a pregnancy test, and by then he had a sinking suspicion what the results would be.  He bought twenty.  Damn buggers were as expensive as hell.

What followed were the longest fifty minutes of his life as he watched each one of the pregnancy tests light up like a damn Christmas tree.  He had a pile of them by the end of the night.  

Even with fucking 1960% positive, Jim learned at that moment how wonderful denial really was.  It would be another week before he walked into San Fran General, because he definitely wasn't going to Starfleet Medical to get his blood work done there.  Because the world hated him, it just had to still be fucking positive.

At first, Jim considered not telling Bones.  He wasn't sure how Bones felt about kids.  He never discussed them with Bones because they never interested him.  

He knew the loopholes and where to get a back alley abortion. All the omegas at Starfleet did.  It was Starfleet's worst kept secret.  Being an omega in Starfleet was like joining an elusive club.  

Most omegas in Starfleet, like Jim, masked their status and presented as a beta.  Only Bones, a handful of Starfleet doctors, Christopher Pike and later Gaila, because she claimed she could smell the omega heat in him, knew the truth.  

When Jim's status was revealed after the Nero incident, in addition to all the alphas and betas who wanted to claim him, he also received an email from the Starfleet Omega Society, or SOS.  The irony of the acronym was not lost on Jim. 

When he was still a student, Gaila had once tried to convince him to join, said it would do him good.  It was like a support group.  Back then, Jim had no interest in joining. He didn’t need support, and he definitely didn’t need anyone knowing about his status, even anonymously.  Jim wasn’t dumb.  He knew nothing in the world was actually anonymous. 

But now…

_Ten weeks..._

He was almost ten weeks along… ten weeks and two days...

He had long past the cutoff for the 'pill'.  He knew Bones could do it for him.  

It was Bones' fault.

It was definitely Bones' fault.

_Bones..._

He wasn't sure where they stood at this moment, whether they could ever go back to being friends again.  This had been the first time he had seen Bones in nearly two month.  It wasn't like Jim had been actively seeking him out after _that_ week either.  A week where Jim had seen a side of Bones he had never even dreamt existed.  Bones was a fucking possessive bastard when it came to sex.  His wrists had hurt a full week afterwards due to just how tight the handcuffs were.

_And fuck…_

There really was no denying that Bones was amazing at it.

He had screamed Bones' name and made sounds that he had never thought could possibly leave his lips after undergoing puberty.  Bones had a way of twisting himself inside of Jim.  He knew exactly where and how to move to make everything a million times better.

Really it was no surprise what had happened did happen.

A part of Jim knew it wasn't really Bones' fault.  He was the one who had called him that night.  He should have known Bones didn't take birth control.  He should have remembered.  

Because, after whatever the hell happened with his marriage, and were it not for the few 'relationships' and 'encounters' Bones had over the years, one could say Bones had turned asexual.  He never seemed particularly interested in males, females, or whatever’s.  Of course, Bones wouldn’t be keeping up with his birth control shots.

However none of that mattered, because he wasn’t keeping it.

He had decided the moment the first test lit up like a fucking Christmas tree. 

He had no qualms, no hesitation about making that decision.  He was not keeping it.  The world had enough people.  It didn’t require anymore, especially not with his broken, messed up genes.  He was not paternal, and he sure as fuck didn’t have the omega nurturing instinct.  He was shit at ‘nurturing’.

Jim pulled a face before tossing another pebble into the San Francisco harbor.  He watched as it skipped across the water before sinking into the distance.

Before he would have walked into a bar and drank himself to oblivion and maybe even spent the night fucking or be fucked by some nameless stranger in a dark alley or in a moldy motel room in downtown San Francisco.

Tonight he turned and made the long jog back to his apartment.           

The moment he got back to his apartment, which was only one floor above Bones’ he flopped down on his couch.  He threw the PADD with his test results down on his own coffee table, the twin of Bones’, before pulling out his personal PADD, the one that wasn’t linked to Starfleet’s networks.

He then proceeded to pull up the list of abortion clinics in the San Francisco area that SOS had discreetly forwarded to him a year ago.  There was a surprisingly large number in San Francisco and its surrounding areas.  Each had a short description of its ‘amenities’.  But Jim didn’t really care how many windows or what type of bed it offered.  He needed somewhere discreet and at least halfway sanitary.

He eventually settled for a small clinic halfway between Chinatown and the wharf.  It was an area he was familiar with.  He had walked through those streets many times with Bones during their time at the academy.  It was one of the only places still open in the dead of night when they really, really needed food.  It was also only a ninety minute walk or a twenty minute hover taxi ride. 

It was too late to go tonight, and unfortunately he had long meetings for the next few days. 

Friday, he would go next Friday.  It meant he had a weekend to drown it all away in mindless fucks. 

*************

On Wednesday, he regretted his decision. 

He saw Bones that day at a luncheon that he had forgotten about until the last moment.  He looked awful even from far away and even worse close-up, worse than that night or maybe Jim hadn’t really been paying attention.  He looked like he had been drinking again.  His eyes were blood shot red, and his hair barely passed regulation length. 

Bones’ eyes widened upon his approach.  He noted how he slipped a momentary glance at his abdomen before quickly looking away.  Jim barely heard the ‘captain’ that left his lips.

_Captain…_

Jim wasn’t sure Bones had ever called him that.  It was always Jim or some deviation of ‘kid’ or ‘infant’ if he was really annoyed.

The word ‘doctor’ sounded just as foreign. 

He hoped nobody else heard, and nobody noticed when they each turned on their heels and walked in the opposite direction.  He made sure to spend the rest of the time talking with Spock or one of the admirals or commodores.  However, he did notice when Bones slipped away early. 

_Friday…_

After Friday he would try to fix things with Bones if there was anything left to fix.

*************

When Friday finally did come around, the sky looked angry and dark.  The trees creaked and groaned due to the force of the strong winds that blew in from the bay.  The cars seemed louder. The destruction caused by the Vengeance seemed more obvious and glaring in the distant horizon. 

Jim tugged on the collar of his leather jacket.  It had been a long time since he wore it.   There was a faint smell of mildew, mothballs, and age old bourbon.  There was a faint blood stain that never came off on his right sleeve.

The winds got stronger the closer he got.  The street lights flickered ominously.  As he turned the final corner, the sky exploded with thunder, lightning and rain.  In the distance, he could make out the cacophony of barking, hissing and wailing. 

“Great,” Jim muttered.  He pulled his nearly soaked jacket tighter.  It was probably unsalvageable at this point.

The ‘clinic’ was located between a cleaner and an auto parts store.  Jim could smell the grease and the steam.  He almost walked past it.  The building numbers were old and wearing away.  The gold paint was chipping away due to the elements.

The entrance was below ground.  It required him to climb down a ladder.  It was a steel door, windowless and camouflaged into the walls. It vaguely felt like a scene out from a horror story.  He took a deep breath before grabbing the knob.  It was cold and wet. 

It turned easily.  As he slipped inside, he was surprised how ‘normal’ it looked.  There was a small waiting room much like the ones at Starfleet Medical.  Hell, there was even a playpen in the corner with toys. 

There were five others in the room, three females and two males.  Two looked around his age, while another seemed to have barely hit puberty.  Jim wondered what his story was.  He wondered if that could have been him, in another life.  The boy scowled at him.  Jim quickly looked away. 

He walked to the counter.  There was an alien sitting there, with teal skin and long braided flaming red hair.  She, Jim guessed it was a she, looked bored.  “I…”  Jim started.  She didn’t look up from her PADD.   Jim wondered if she heard him.  “I…”

She looked up.  She seemed visibly annoyed.  “Can’t you read?”  She tapped the placard in front of her.  Jim blinked.  He hadn’t noticed it.  “Take a number.  Go sit down…”  The console next to her blinked, she turned away.  “Twenty-four!”  She bellowed out, suddenly.  Her whole face puffed outwards.  She looked remarkably like a puffer fish.

Jim watched as one of the three woman stood up.  She looked scared as she walked past him.  Her belly was very visible.  Jim wondered how far along she was as she disappeared thru the double swinging doors.  

“We’ll call your number.”  She finished. 

He pulled a number, ‘twenty-nine’.  By then, she had lost interest and had gone back to reading her PADD.  Jim took the seat between the other male and one of the remaining females.  The male looked pale. 

While the female, she seemed bored.  She was wearing tall high heel shoes, taller than the ones his female crew wore, a mini skirt that barely covered anything, and a blouse that only buttoned below her bulging twin peaks.  She looked at him and smiled.  “Aren’t you a cutie?” 

“Thanks.”  He wasn’t sure if he should comment.  He was beginning to regret not wearing a disguise or something. 

“First time?”

Jim made a nondescript grunt. 

“Don’t worry, it’s easy.  My sixth,” she added.  “Well as long as you don’t wait as long as that one did,” she nodded at the door.  “Just between you and me, not sure who she’s fooling, looks like she could drop any day now.  Did you see her size?  I doubt it’s only one.” 

“Yeah…”  Jim hoped his one word comments were enough.  He really didn’t want to strike a conversation.

“Though during the fourth one, this poor boy… he was sitting right where you are.  His folks brought in him.  He was in denial the whole time, said it was indigestion till the moment the baby landed… ‘smack’,” she clapped her hands together, “On the floor.” 

The boy who had scowled when he arrived flinched. Even Jim couldn’t help but take a deep breath.

She shook her head.  “They had to close for a week after that incident,” she lamented.

“Doc’s real nice; he’ll even blow you if you ask.  How my fifth one happened.  He wasn’t happy, but he couldn’t say anything.  Nothing but dick and…”  She paused momentarily.  She looked at him once before parting her legs. 

He watched her reach between her legs.  She groaned before pulling out a large thirty centimeter pink dildo with diamond studs along the length from between her legs.  The shaft was wet and dripping with her fluids.  “This passes through” She said fluidly.  She licked it once before replacing it back inside.   Jim watched as she repositioned her mini skirt and crossed her legs back together.  “No baby is going to ruin these goods.”  She winked at him.

Jim coughed.

She laughed.  “Shame you’re not an alpha.  If so, I would totally sleep with you.”

“Twenty-five!”

“Oops, that’s my number.  Wish we luck.” 

Jim watched as she slipped through the door.  The last moment she turned around and blew him a kiss.

_Damn…_

Thankfully the rest of the time, he was able to wait in peace.  None of the other occupants were nearly as talkative.  It wasn’t for another two hours before he was finally called. 

The double doors led to a long, dark hallway.  There was a lone light that flickered at the end of the passageway.  He walked towards it.  His footsteps echoed throughout the passageway; it sounded deafening loud.

He felt like he had walked many, many meters, and made many, many turns.   He finally arrived at a large room.  It looked like what had once been an atrium, but now refurbished into an operating room.  The room was partitioned into many tiny cubicles.  Each was separated by a semi transparent divider.  Jim could make out the rough shapes of the occupants.

“Number.”

Jim jumped back in alarm. 

“Number,” the nasal voice repeated.

Jim looked around, but nothing seemed to have made that noise.

The owner of the voice coughed.  Jim looked down.  A man, whose head barely reached his waist line, was glaring up at him.  Jim wondered if he could beat Bones at a ‘most intimidating’ staring contest.  “Number,” he repeated.

”Twenty-nine.”

“Last row, back corner, Doc will be in shortly,” the man stated before disappearing.  Jim blinked once.  It was then that he noticed there was a small number next to each partition.

Just like the man had said, twenty-nine was at the far back.  He slipped behind the partition to find not a bio bed but a long metal table.  There was a single piece of yellowing cloth with an old threadbare gown lying on one section of the bed.  At that same end was also a pair of stirrups and a single stool. 

As he was pulling off his underwear, an elder man walked in.  He was pushing a cart of supplies with his mechanic arm and hand.  Jim wondered how that happened and why he didn’t replace it with a synthetic one.

“Lost it in the war.”  The man explained as he walked forward, a tricorder in hand. 

“I’m sorry?”

“The arm,” he confirmed.  He turned a knob on his tricorder and scanned his abdomen.  “Eleven weeks…”  He slapped his tricorder shut.  ‘Nurse, will be in to start the dilation.  Any allergies?”

He hadn’t really thought about his medical allergies, not in a long time.  Bones however knew them all after the Melvaran Mud Flea Vaccine incident over a year ago.  “Err…”

The man didn’t seem to notice or care for he had already disappeared.

A while later a pale orange alien appeared.  She was carrying a box.  “Lay down, legs on the stirrup.”  She seemed indifferent.  Jim guessed for this business it was probably necessary.

The table was as cold as it looked.  She looked displeased as she looked down at him.  She was holding a hypo spray.  Just as Jim was about to question its contents, she injected it into his collar bone.  Immediately he felt drowsy.  The room seemed stuffy and had gotten darker.

He heard the nurse’s heels taping on the cold hard ground. 

Maybe it was minutes.  Maybe it was hours later.

Suddenly the whole room seemed to explode with lights and color.

In the distance, he thought he heard someone shout, “Shut it down.”

Followed by a ‘find him’ before everything went black. 


	6. Chapter 6

Jim awoke to a fluffy of bright lights, hushed frantic voices whose words he couldn’t make out, and blurs of shadow and movement. 

He tried opening his mouth but found no sound escaped his lips. A sense of panic coursed through his body when he realized he couldn’t move his arms or his legs.  In fact his whole body seemed paralyzed.  Even his neck refused to turn.

“He’s going into shock!” Someone shouted. 

The last thing he saw was sudden, frantic movement in the corner of his vision.

 

*************

 

The next time Jim awoke was to the sound of faint off tempo beeping overhead and almost complete darkness save for the moonlight that was streaming in through the window blinds. 

This time, at least he could move his body.  His arms left like lead as he raised them an inch before dropping it back down. 

He twisted his neck.  The neon lit chronometer flashed 0400.  In the corner, the star date blinked to the seconds. 

Five days had past.  Five days since…

_Fuck!_

He didn’t even have to look down towards his abdomen, to the glaring almost nonexistent bump or to recognize that the beeping was off tempo because it belonged to a second set of heart beats.  It belonged to the parasite growing inside of him.  The parasite that he didn’t want, the parasite he had tried to remove.

Jim clenched his fist, gritted his teeth and tried to drown out the sound. 

He fell asleep to Federation codes and laws.

 

*************

 

The next time he awoke, at least five more days had passed, and he wasn’t the only one in the room.    

Jim noticed him from the long shadow he cast against the floor boards.  Benjamin Greenstock, tall and imposing, stood in the corner of his room.  His arms were crossed, and there was a frown on his face.

Jim recognized him immediately from Khan’s trials.  He was surprised to see him here.   He worked for Section 31.  Khan had named him during his trials. 

Jim wondered how long he had been standing there, and whether closing his eyes until he left would be an option.

“I know you’re awake, Kirk.”

Jim sighed.  He pushed back his sheets and noted that someone had changed him back into civilian clothes.  They had even shaved him. 

“You’ve also been discharged.  You’re condition has… stabilized.”

Jim scoffed at the word ‘condition’.  “What are you even doing here?”

Greenstock crossed the room briskly.  His footsteps clattered on the tiled floor.  He loomed over the bed.  Jim looked up as Greenstock grabbed his wrist.  His eyes were grey and cold.  Jim could almost taste his alpha scent.  He wondered if Greenstock was doing it on purpose.  “You think you’ve won?”  He licked his lips and tightened his grip.  “I would watch out, Kirk.  Not everyone…”  He leaned over until he was millimeters from Jim’s ear.  “Thinks you’re a hero,” he muttered before pulling away.

“Greenstock!”

Greenstock’s hand immediately extracted from his wrist.  The only indication that it had been there were the indentations from five red fingerprints.

A little pump lady with high heels and a tall, braided bun that could rival Rand’s marched into the room.    She was cradling an archaic looking clipboard in her hands.  “You said you would comm the moment he woke up.  Admiral Nyes is a busy man,” the woman squeaked out.  She reminded Jim of a mouse.

She hurried forward.  On the way over, she pulled his jacket from the coat rack and draped it over his shoulder before he could protest.  “The rest of your things have been sent to your living quarters already,” she added.  “Do you need a hover chair?  The nurses said I should ask.”  She added hurriedly. 

Jim shook his head.  He hadn’t used a hover chair after dying, and he sure as hell wasn’t using one now to leave the hospital.  He stopped the lady from grabbing his boots.  He was a grown man, damn it.  He could put on his own shoes. 

By the time he had finished getting dressed, Greenstock had disappeared.  Jim didn’t bother to ask. 

From the sun’s position in the sky, Jim noted it was nearly mid-afternoon.  The spring wind brushed against his cheeks.  It was a typical, blue sky, white cloud San Francisco day, and Jim Kirk hated every minute of it as they traversed the grounds of Starfleet.  They passed the Academy grounds where cadets in blazing red past by.  They were rowdy and carefree, eager green necks.  Jim wondered if he was ever that carefree.

Starfleet Headquarters was located at the top of a hill.  Like a silent guardian or a menacing fortress, Jim could never decide.  He could almost taste the alpha pheromones the moment he stepped inside the tall glass doors. 

Nyes’ office was on the ninth floor.  His own office was on the fifth.  Starfleet Headquarters ran on the fabled corporate ladder of success. 

There was an ornate golden lion on his door.

“Admiral Nyes’ second wife gave him that,” she squeaked out.

Jim let out a soft ‘hmm’.  Second and even third ‘wives’ weren’t uncommon.  Some of the rear admirals had five or more ‘wives’. 

He had taken the class at the Academy, Family Planning 101.  Bonding with more than one omega gave the omegas companionship during long missions.   

Nyes was sitting at his desk.  He was looking at his PADD when Jim stepped in.  His aide followed closely behind.  “Captain Kirk, sire,” she squeaked out.

“Thank you, Lucy.” 

Jim noted the way she blushed red.  Jim wondered if she was in line to be Nyes’ next wife, or she was just a side fling.

“Have a seat, James,” Nyes added, as if it was an afterthought once she left the room. 

Jim slipped into the seat across from Nyes.  He crossed his legs and cupped his hands together over his knee.  “You called?”

Nyes didn’t answer for another two minutes.  Jim knew this game. He had played it his whole life.  He watched as Nyes press a few more buttons on his PADD before setting it down.  He then looked at Jim.  He looked at him intently before nodding.  “Good, Mark didn’t let me down.  You gave us all a scare, James,” he chided.

His voice sent shivers down Jim’s spine.

He shook his head patronizingly before picking up his pen.  “It’s a good thing Greenstock and his men were on call, or that innocent, helpless life would be lost.”  Nyes clicked his pen a couple of times. 

Jim tightened his grip on his knee.  His knuckles started to turn white.  He could already see where this was going.

“Mark said had they been even two minutes late.  It would have been too late.”  He shook his head, disapprovingly.

He tapped his pen once.  “You’re awfully quiet James.  You’re never this quiet from what I’ve heard.  Don’t you have anything to say?”

Because Jim didn’t care, because after what Nyes had just revealed to him… he really, really didn’t care.  He didn’t care about his captaincy, about Starfleet… about anything.  He spoke the first words that came to his mind.  "You can't make me keep it."

"Oh yes we can James." 

The words sent a chill down Jim’s back.  He was suddenly reminded of another man who said almost the exact same words to him in that exact same tone.  It was had a long time ago.

"You see James, Christopher Pike, bless his soul, might have thought highly of you.  He thought you were meant for greatness.”  Jim detected the foulness in the way he said ‘greatness’.  "The rest of the admiralty sees you for what you truly are... an uncontrollable little boy who doesn't understand the importance of the chair."

Jim clenched his fist until his knuckles turned white.  He wasn't going to lash out.  He knew what this man wanted.  He had spent his whole life dealing with men like Nyes.  First there was Uncle Frank, and then there was Kodos, and finally old man Biggins at Riverside Detention Center.  They were all men who thought Jim was weak because he was born an omega.  

"You see James.  After the Nero fiasco, we wanted to send you back to the academy.  It's where you belong.  Where you still should be."  Nyes tapped the base of his pen against the surface of his desk.

"Then why don't you?"

"Unfortunately after these last two charades, Starfleet is running low on recruits.  Do you realize how many lives we have lost?"

Jim did not take the bait.    

"Too many... Too many bright young men and women..."  

Jim decided he really hated Nyes right now.  The longer Jim stayed in Starfleet, the less he saw it as the utopian organization that Pike had preached to him.  Starfleet like the rest of the world was a cruel, harsh reality.  

"You must be wondering what this has to do with you and that poor, defenseless infant growing inside of you."  Jim could practically taste the sarcasm in Nyes' voice now.

"You have no right Nyes."  

"Rights?  Are we talking about rights now James?"  Nyes laughed.  It was a cruel laugh.  One that reminded Jim of all the other asshole alphas he knew his whole lifetime.  "Do you really want to talk about rights?  Where do you want to start?  The Federation codes?  An omega's place in society? The Starfleet contract you signed upon enlisting?"

Nyes tapped his pen again.  "Because James, if you play with fire, you will burn.  You belong to Starfleet.  Now we can make this easy, or we can make it difficult."

"Are you threatening me?"

"Of course not James.  We would never do that."  Nyes tapped his pen again.  "Now let's be serious here."  He put down his pen before crossing his fingers together.  "We can use the contract to make you keep the child.  We can parade you around as the hero of the Federation.  Transform you into the heroic omega who even in a time of darkness found love and formed a family and can still serve as captain.  However, we all know that won't be pleasant for anybody. So..."  

Nyes smiled.  

He fingered through his pile of PADDs before pulling one out.  "I know your type James.  The kind that some at Starfleet believe we need more of.  The sacrificial type... Nothing we can give you will make you cooperate."

Jim didn't respond.  

"However..."  Nyes turned the PADD around.  There on the screen was Bones' face glaring back at him.  For the briefest of seconds, his muscles twitched.  Nyes smiled.  

_Fuck..._

"Doctor Leonard McCoy is about to face court martial for bringing you back to life using an unorthodox medical treatment.  He could lose his license.  He could lose everything."

"You're trading my cooperation for..."

"Yes James.  If you keep that baby and follow through with Starfleet's PR campaign, we will wipe clean this mess from Dr. McCoy's records.  However..." Nyes smirked.  "Well, I guess we don't have to go there, because you will do it, won't you Captain Kirk?"

Jim hated this, and for this to be his no win scenario was the biggest blow.

"Yes," he gritted out.  Because Nyes was right, there wasn’t anything Starfleet really could do with him.  He was lauded as the hero of the Federation, the Kelvin miracle baby.  However, Bones… Bones was different, because even if he lost Bones in all this mess, he still couldn’t destroy Bones’ career. 

"I knew you would see it our way, James."  At that moment Nyes' face transformed into the pleasant admiral whose face was plastered all over Starfleet Academy. "Maximus and Eldena will be in contact with you shortly.  That will be all."

James gritted his teeth as he stood up.  He made his salute which Nyes returned.  "Oh, and James. Congratulations."

_God fucking damn it..._

 

*************

 

The hover taxi ride across the bay was short.  Jim barely noticed the small tug boats and ocean liners that passed under the bay bridge, one of the timeless remnants of the past.

Madame Orion's was lively and bustling with sound, music and life.  It was a hidden oasis in this age.  Moreover, it was everything and more that Jim needed at this moment.  He needed it to forget about the admiralty.  He needed it to forget about the parasite that he could no longer get rid of. 

He knew he could get all this and more at Madame Orion’s.  It never let him down.  He had found the place soon after arriving at the Academy.  In the first years he frequented it often.  When his studies and the formalities became too much, when he couldn't stand the alpha scent that surrounded him, he would slip away from the Academy grounds. 

Madame Orion's didn't ask questions.  The establishment understood anonymity.  It understood that everyone had something to hide.

Tonight he needed it.  He needed it rough.  He needed it hard.  He needed it to forget.

The moment he stepped inside all the years came rushing back.  Nothing had changed.  The hideous tapestry behind the reception desk was still hanging proudly and vibrantly.  The attendants were still in their semi-nude strips of cloth that left very little to the imagination.  The large consoles were still blaring and flashing their tacky neon lights. 

There was a long line of patrons in the entry way.  Madame Orion’s was never low on clients.  Jim slipped behind a pair of chattering blue aliens.

It wasn’t even five minutes, before he was placing his own order.  He didn't bat an eye at the price.  Jim had learned long ago that anything could be bought with a price at Madame Orion's.

He swiped his personal credit chip through the card reader.   He was shown through a pair of doors.  There was a long corridor.  His stomach lunged momentarily at the memory.  He was reminded of that clinic, of how Section 31 had found him. 

He forced himself to remember that they couldn’t find him here.  They had no reason to come after him again.  He knew Nyes believed him, and for a second that made Jim sick.  

He was shown to a room with bright red curtains and matching wallpaper and carpet.  

In the center of the room was a large four post metal bed.  The sheets were clean. Jim knew that.  The establishment prided themselves on their sanitation.  He nodded at his attendant to acknowledge that he was satisfied with the accommodations.  The attendant backed away, leaving the door slightly ajar.

He tossed his jacket onto the coat rack.  

He was pulling off his underwear when a set of triplets, three men, strolled in.  They each had jet black hair and deep green eyes.  They were near impossible to differentiate.

All three were already hard and leaking.  They each had a cock ring on, blue, red and green.  They were each holding a different item, the ones he had requested: a blindfold, cuffs, and a chastity belt.

He felt his own cock jumped to life at the sight.  They smiled.  The one with the blue ring who was holding the blindfold stepped forward.

He ran his hand over Jim's thigh, reaching tantalizingly close to Jim's weeping cock.  A smirk appeared on his face as his hands worked their way upwards.  The blindfold glossed the side of Jim's skin.  When they finally reached Jim's face, he wrapped it around his eyes.  

His world went dark.  Now all that was left was sound and touch.  Jim felt the other two come forward.  He felt the slight change in room temperature as they crowded around him.

They maneuvered him backwards against the bed.  They pinned his hands backwards.  He tasted their vodka laced saliva as they locked his hands above his head with a pair of handcuffs.  His legs were spread achingly fall apart before similarly being locked in place.  He gasped as he felt his cock being forced into a chastity belt.  He heard the lock click shut.

He moaned as a cock plunged into his hole.  Without the initial preparation or his slick, it felt hard and rough.  He buckled forward.  The cuffs prevented him from falling too far forward.  They dug deep into his skin.  The links rattled as they hit the bed post.  

The man thrust forward. His fingernails dug into his hips. He felt his balls brush against his skin, hot and tight.  

He nearly cried out as another entered him.  He felt as if he was about to burst open.  As he opened his mouth, the final cock entered his mouth.

In the haze of darkness, his vision exploded with a thousand stars. The cocks moved to the same tempo... achingly slow at first before getting faster and faster.  He knew his saliva was dripping from the corners of his mouth as the cock in his mouth grew larger and harder. He felt the formation of the alpha's bulbous knot against the back of his teeth.  He could barely breathe.  

However because Jim Kirk didn't believe in no win scenarios, he continued to take it. He took it long and hard until the tip touched his uvula.  He was determined to give this man the best blow job he had ever experienced.  He ran his tongue over the man's cock, over the cock ring.

His own cock throbbed. Unable to expand, unable to cum from the device that locked him shut.  He nearly cried out as they thrust forward.  He felt it against that thin flap of tissue that he never tried to think about.  He wondered if it would be enough to end all his problems, because here... here Starfleet couldn’t find him.  Here nobody could find him.

He felt like he was being torn apart.  He felt like he was going to die. He has never felt better.

At that moment, finally, finally the belt slipped off. It clattered harshly to the floor.  At that moment, the triplets thrust forward.  He cried out as one grabbed him around his abdomen.  

He wondered if he'll bruise.  He wondered if the parasite could feel it. He wondered if the man could feel it.

They thrust into him.  The two cocks simultaneously hit that flap of skin. In an explosion of light, he released it all.  At that moment, that final moment he saw a pair of bright hazel eyes...the swirl of browns and greens.

The twin’s knots were firmly and tightly locked within him.  He spit out the cum in his mouth.  He knew the leftovers dripped from his lips.  He crumpled helplessly; the only things that supported him were the cuffs.

As he hung there in the room, locked against two men as the other rubbed his hand over his softening penis, he had never felt emptier.

He barely felt rounds two or three.  He came with a soft whimper.  His cock and hole felt raw and used when they leave him in the room.

As he drifted off to sleep, he wondered why he was wishing it was Bones' seed dripping down his legs. 

 

*************

 

There was a service at Starfleet that most personnel didn’t use.   Jim, himself had only used it a handful of time. 

The Starfleet escort service…

For no questions asked, an android could be issued to escort anyone living on Starfleet's property home.  Jim had used it the few times he felt like he couldn’t safely walk up a flight of stairs without tumbling backwards.  After dying, Bones had forced him to use it for a week. 

So really, he should have questioned it when he was lead to the wrong floor.  When the wrong number glared back at him…

However he was too tired to think.  All he wanted to do was sleep and sleep...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. 
> 
> I hope I picked a believable reason for why Jim would agree to go through with it. That was one of the hardest things about this prompt. Logically I feel Bones had to have face some repercussions for how he brought Jim back to life. So in this verse, I used it as leverage to get Jim to agree and to clear Bones all together. I feel despite Jim's love for his ship, his crew and the stars, he could give it up if Starfleet was going to take away his 'self'.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now we get Leonard's side...
> 
> I hope this one worked okay too.

The day Leonard McCoy stepped foot on that god damn shuttle to Starfleet fucking Academy, he had sworn he would never drink himself to oblivion again.  That he wouldn’t forget to eat and bury himself in work when the world went to shit on him. 

Then again he also swore he would never fall in love especially not for his best friend.

He had spectacularly broken both those promises.

He had fallen long and hard for Jim Kirk.

He was drowning in alcohol and work because of Jim Kirk because he couldn’t keep his fucking cock to himself when it fucking mattered.

And really the biggest, biggest irony was the déjà vu of it all.

*************

 

Before everything went to shit on Friday, he hadn’t seen Jim since that luncheon on Wednesday.  He only went because of Spock.  He wondered if Spock knew.  He was sensitive as fuck.

He knew… he fucking knew that he and Jim were friends the first time they met on that god forsaken jaunt to Vulcan.

He came into his office carrying a fresh set of medical blues and stated quite calmly that the luncheon was at noon.     Of course, Spock didn’t leave until Leonard threw up his hands and changed into a new uniform.  Fucking green hobgoblin could give Jim a run for persistence.  No wonder they hit it off so well.

He really thought he would be okay.  The luncheon was located in one of the bigger halls.  There was no way he would find Jim if he wasn’t actively seeking him out.  Of course, the first person he ran into was Jim.

Jim Kirk…

That radiant ball of fire that had consumed him long ago…

And because biology hated him, because the world hated him, he could smell his scent in Jim.  He could smell the entanglement of them that their week of biological induced high had created.  There was almost pure hatred in Jim’s baby blues when his eyes wondered down to his abdomen.  The tiny almost nonexistent bump that could only be noticeable if one knew to look.

That was why he called him ‘captain’ instead of ‘Jim’ or any of the multitudes of nicknames he had given the kid over the years.

He stayed for the appropriate –polite- amount of time.  He avoided the bridge crew and Scotty.   

And then Friday happened.

He had taken the graveyard shift and any other shift he could swing from his colleagues.  He knew it would only be a matter of time before Boyce would deactivate his ID card.  Then all he would have left would be his bottle.

He was the only doctor on staff when it was called in, when Leonard McCoy’s life fell apart… again.

He should have known when Mark Piper, second only to Philip Boyce, came charging into Starfleet Medical.  Mark Piper rarely worked these days.  He had been a legendary doctor in his prime.  He had single-handedly revolutionized omega care in the last half century.

Before Piper was even in the elevator, a fluffy of men in with black sleeves and a dark blue front stormed in through the front door.  Leonard immediately recognized them as Section 31.  He could never forget their faces, or their uniforms.  He backed into an adjoining hallway.  As they rushed by, Leonard noticed that the men in the center were pushing a gurney.  His heart dropped when he recognized that all too familiar blond hair peeking out from beneath the sheets. 

He didn’t even need the confirmation when his PADD vibrated in his hands.  He knew… he knew before he even looked down at his PADD that of course it would state that Jim Kirk had just been admitted to Starfleet Medical. 

Damn kid was a genius who hated doctors. 

He had been Jim’s primary doctor since the day he found out about his status.  Genius kid had done something in the system to notify Leonard the moment he was admitted into any hospital.  At the time, Jim had told him it was because he trusted him the most.  He called his hands legendary with that smirk on his face.  It broke a thousand protocols, and because Jim Kirk was a genius, nobody suspected anything.  So of course, the notification still went through.

However for once, Leonard knew… he knew he couldn’t help Jim.

He didn’t need his medical license or his IQ to know what Jim had done… or almost done.

He went into his office and locked the doors.  And he sat there in the dark with his PADD in his hands and the sound of his heart as it shattered into a thousand pieces.

One of his nurses found him there the next morning, sleeping in two day old medical blues on the floor of his office.  Unlike most of his nurses, she was one of the few that didn’t fear him.  She sent him home with a reproachful look on her face and a stern warning to not come back until he had a solid twelve hours’ worth of sleep.  Like hell he was going to get any. 

But it also meant that he could avoid that large elephant in his life that was one, Jim Kirk.  The alert on his PADD was a constant reminder that Jim was still in Starfleet Medical, and he was too much of a coward to go see him.

It was two days later that he finally worked up his courage to find Jim.  Of course his admittance was classified and redacted from the system.  However, because of what Jim had done all those years ago and because Leonard was CMO of the Federation’s flagship, naturally he found Jim’s room.  He had been sequestered in a section of the hospital that was rarely used.  There was a Section 31 guard posted outside his room.

Because he had been Jim’s friend for nearly half decade, Leonard McCoy had been taught the art of espionage from one of the best.  He learned the guards’ schedule.  It took two additional days.  There was always a window of ten minutes when nobody was watching him. 

He pressed his hand against the window.  His heart sank upon seeing Jim in that room.    His throat felt so dry. 

_God, how could they?_

It was like trapping a bird in a cage, clipping its wings, chaining it down…

Jim was lying in a large bio bed.  There were so many wires, so many tubes connected to him.  He looked so small, so frail in that bed.  He looked so pale.  There was barely any color on his cheeks.

Leonard swore Jim hadn’t even looked that frail when he died after Khan… after what had started it all.

He pushed into the room.  He felt his breath hitch the moment he heard it.  It was loud.  It was oppressing.  It was everything Leonard had ever wanted, and everything… everything that turned their lives upside down.

It was the heartbeat of their unborn baby. 

His legs felt like lead as he collapsed into the chair next to Jim’s bed.  There was slight, lingering warmth in the cushion. 

He watched as Jim’s chest rose and fell.  He listened to the beeping of the biobed as it recorded his stats.  He listened to the heartbeat of their unborn child, so strong, so alive…  

His hand reached for Jim’s, the one that was resting on the side closesr to Leonard.  “God Jim,” he croaked out.  “I’m so, so sorry.” He muttered. 

Because Leonard knew…he knew… what Jim had tried to do.  He didn’t need to look at the PADD lying on the table to know.

Jim had tried, and he had been caught. 

“Damn it, Jim.  You should have let me do it.”  He clasped Jim’s hand between his own.  He breathed into his hand.  It felt so boney.  It seemed all the weight Jim had gained back had all disappeared.  “I’m so sorry.”  Leonard whispered.  “I’m so sorry.”

 

*************

 

Jim was released five days later.  He had been in Starfleet Medical for ten days.

Leonard knew because that was the day he swore the world started spinning in the opposite direction.

He woke up at noon to a massive hangover and a message from Admiral Nyes flashing on his console.  He should have been warily at that moment.  He knew about Nyes.  He was one of the admirals who had been promoted based on status as opposed to accomplishments.  The word was he had never commanded a starship or a star base in his life.

The moment he stepped into Nyes’ office, Leonard knew he would hate him.  He reeked of stereotypically alpha male.  He could taste his scent the moment he stepped into his office.  He scowled when he noticed Jim’s lingering scent.  He could recognize it anywhere.  He noted the smirk on his face as he motioned for Leonard to sit. 

“Dr. McCoy,” Nyes acknowledged.

“Admiral,” Leonard nodded his head.  His daddy had taught him how to deal with alphas like this.  “What can I do for you sir?”

The smile on Nyes’ face widened even more.  “Why do you think there is something you can do for me?”

“I assumed that is why you called me here.”

“Of course, clever man.  No wonder Captain Kirk requested you as his CMO the moment he was made captain.”

Leonard simply nodded. He knew Jim had requested him.  It was his first request as captain to keep the ‘legendary’ team together.  Jim had told him it was important.  He had seen it in the other Spock’s mind.  In a universe where alphas, betas, and omegas didn’t exist, Leonard couldn’t wrap his head around that concept. 

“Of course you knew that,” Nyes continued.  “You and Captain Kirk are friends, best friends…”  Leonard clasped his fingers together.  “And also his primary care physician.”  He looked at Nyes at that moment.  He hoped his face didn’t betray him.

_He couldn’t know._

“You’re a doctor.  You know the laws.” Nyes continued, that smirk still on his face.

Leonard nodded.

“You know the Federation cherishes each of its citizens, born and unborn.”

Leonard nodded.

“You also know murder is a serious offense.”

Leonard grip tightened.

“You also know that stress causes people to do unnecessary things.”  Nyes continued.  He sighed, sagely.  It was long and so, so forced.  “You would agree Captain Kirk has been under a lot of stress?”

Leonard nodded.

“What with Admiral Pike’s untimely death.”  Nyes bowed his head momentarily.

_God, was he a man of theatrics._

“And now that he is with a… child.” 

Leonard’s eyes snapped open.

Nyes smiled. “Of course I know.  Poor, poor child.  Luckily, it seems James has come to his senses.  Mark said had they been even two minutes late… well…” 

Leonard’s eyes widened even more.  “What did...”  The words died from his lips.

Nyes laughed.  He opened his face and laughed, and laughed. 

“What did I do?  Is that what you’re asking, when I saved the life of your unborn baby.”

Leonard flinched.

“Of course it’s yours.  Your scent is all over that poor, poor boy.”  Nyes picked up his pen.  He tapped the end to his desk twice. “Now, now Dr. McCoy.  I’m not here to chastise you and James’ relationship.  Starfleet doesn’t require celibacy.  We aren’t saints.”

“Then…”

“James is a brilliant man, a great captain, and a hero to the Federation.”

Leonard wondered how many of those words Nyes believed.  He also wondered how many years or what retribution he could face for punching a Starfleet admiral.

“Now, now Leonard.”

Nyes tapped his pen to his desk again.

“But he needs nurturing.  He needs you as much as the Federation needs their golden boy.”

Leonard’s scowl grew bigger even larger.  “Jim is his own man.”

Nyes laughed.  He picked up a PADD from a large stack.  “You know he said the same thing.  I really must question what they are teaching these days.”  Nyes waved his hand.  “Jim has already agreed.”

Leonard blinked.

“He has agreed to be the Federation’s golden boy.  The harbinger of a new age, you know as well as anybody that with these last two incidences… Nero and then Khan…”

Leonard flinched at the two names.  These still wasn’t a day that had could go by that he didn’t see the debris of all those starships floating in the dead of space.  That he didn’t see Vulcan disappear in a single second as if it had never existed.  That he didn’t see Jim’s dead cold body in that body bag.  That he wasn’t reminded of the destruction of San Francisco caused by the U.S.S. Vengeance plowing through the city or smell the smoke wavering in the distance. 

“Has depleted Starfleet’s personnel, four classes of promising cadets and nine star ships full of seasoned officers and service men gone.  A complete civilization has been wiped out.  You’re a doctor.  You must realize the ramifications of these acts to morale.  Admiral Marcus feared a Klingon attack.  It is not unfounded.  The Romulans have the last of the Red Matter.  Who knows what else is out there.”

“And you think Jim can boost morale?”  Leonard wanted to laugh.  He wanted to call it ridiculous.  That Jim, Jim was a broken man.  That he had always been broken, that maybe that was one of the reasons they had gravitated towards each other all those years ago.  Two broken men with the entire world against them.  They were like kindred spirits.

“You don’t?” Nyes asked, with that sickening smile on his face.  He looked at Leonard expectedly before smiling.  “The Federation needs a hero.  The Federation needs James Kirk, but James Kirk needs you.”

Leonard sighed.  He wasn’t so sure anymore that Jim even wanted to see him anymore.

But Jim had already agreed.  He still didn’t know why Jim did _that_.  He had never wanted to be the poster boy for the Federation.  He had always resented being the Kelvin baby.

But if Jim did forgive… if he had already agreed. 

Who was Leonard to not agree?

The day he decided to be Jim’s CMO; Leonard McCoy had decided to follow his golden boy to the ends of the universe if he had to.

So the words almost came too easily.

For Jim, Leonard McCoy would agree.  He would always agree.

“What do I have to do?”

Nyes smiled.  He slid the PADD across the table.  The moment Leonard picked it up his heart dropped.

 

*************

 

That was how Leonard McCoy ended up in his current situation, in his brand new Starfleet issued family suite facing the San Francisco harbor.  It was a three bedroom, two bath suite.  By the time he returned to his new living quarters all his belongings, which wasn’t much to begin with, and all of Jim’s belongings, which equally wasn’t much, had already been transferred to their new living quarters.

The living room was furnished with a long off grey ‘u-shaped’ sectional couch.  In the center was a square coffee table.  There was a sheet of transparent aluminum for the center piece with the Starfleet logo etched in the center.   There was an electrical fireplace in the corner.  On the mantel was a spread of framed pictures.   They were mostly of him and Jim during their Academy days. He barely remembered even taking most of these pictures. 

The most recent picture was of Chekov, Sulu, Uhura, Scotty, Jim and him in front of Galileo.  They were in their shuttle suits about to board the Enterprise for the first time since Nero and Vulcan’s destruction.  At the time, Spock hadn’t decided to keep his commission.

Leonard made a mental note to mention they needed to take a group picture.  The ‘destined seven’ as Other Spock had implied.

Jim’s holo screen was mounted in the center of the wall.

It looked like home.

It felt like home… but all for the wrong reasons.

He fell asleep on the couch when the door opened.

His eyes snapped open at the sight of one Jim Kirk as he tumbled into the room.  He looked battered, tired, and most of all he smelt of an assortment of alphas.  Leonard found himself clenching his teeth before he could catch himself. 

He was on his feet in seconds.  “Jim?”

“Bones?”  The nickname slipped from Jim’s lips so easily.  Leonard wondered if it meant that everything between them had magically healed itself.  However the way Jim looked at him.  His baby blues were large and wide, as if all the sleep in his eyes had instantly disappeared.  Jim backed up.  He looked ready to bolt out of the door.  He scratched the back of his neck nervously.  “Oh fuck,” he lamely muttered.

“Jim,” Leonard held up his hands defensively.  He made sure not to step forward. 

“Did you redecorate?”  Jim asked lamely.  He furrowed his brow as he looked around the room.

Leonard laughed.  He couldn’t help but laugh.

“No.”

“Did I redecorate then?”

“No.”

“Oh fuck.”  Jim’s eyes widened.  He sank into the couch and closed his eyes.  He rubbed them with the palms of his hands.

“Jim?”

Jim held up one finger. His eyes still tightly closed.  “Give me a second.”

Leonard sank into the other end of the couch. 

As he sat there and watched as Jim fell asleep, the only thought on his mind was how much he fucking hated the admiralty.

 


	8. Chapter 8

The longer Leonard sat on that couch waiting for Jim to wake up, the more tempted he became to bolt, to run away, to escape it all.

He had done it once with Jocelyn, after everything went to hell. 

But this is… was Jim…

Leonard buried his face into the palm of his hand and waited.

 

*************

 

He guessed he must have fallen asleep. 

He jolted awake some time later.  By then the sun was high in the sky.  But most of all the space Jim had been occupying was empty.

“Fuck,” Leonard muttered, angry at himself for not staying awake.  He was about to stand up when the door to the apartment opened.  He whipped his head around, afraid to find out who he would find.  He immediately relaxed, surprised when it was Jim.

He must have showered and change. 

He was carrying two boxes of takeout Chinese food from one of the restaurants they frequented the most during their time at the academy.  It was a few blocks away from the Academy.  It was easy.  It was simple.  It was so familiar and normal that Leonard hoped everything would go back to normal.

Of course the look on Jim’s face, the still barely noticeable bump, and the rest of the rooms that Leonard had not gone to explore were all indicators that nothing would ever be normal again.

Jim dropped the bags onto the coffee table before walking into the kitchen… their kitchen.

_Fuck…_

He heard Jim pull open the refrigerator door.

“What you want to drink, Bones?”  He called out.

He almost said beer before he caught him. The first syllable slipped from his lips before he could take it back.  “Soda,” he quickly corrected, hoping that Jim hadn’t noticed.

However when Jim returned seconds later, he blinked as Jim set a can of beer down in front of him.  He looked up questionably.  “I said…”

“I know what you said, and what you actually mean.  We don’t both have to suffer, Bones.”  Jim stated.  His voice sounded surprisingly neutral.  Leonard couldn’t detect a hint of malice in his voice.

“Jim…”  Leonard started.  However the look Jim was giving him made him quickly close his mouth. 

He watched as Jim separated out the boxes: fried rice and broccoli beef for him and chow mein and Kung Pao chicken for Jim. 

“Thanks,” he muttered.  He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he smelt the food.  He also couldn’t remember the last time he ate.  It must have been the day before, right?  Lately all the days kept blending together.

Jim nodded.

They ate in silence. It was a palatable silence.  Leonard could feel it.  He couldn’t remember the last time they ate in silence.  Even those early days, the days when Leonard hated humanity and all he wanted to do was drown in silence and alcohol, Jim refused to relent.  He insisted on detailing out all his classes and all the beauties around them to Leonard.

Silence and Jim rarely meshed together.

Jim finished first.  He set his empty box down on the table before leaning back against the couch.   He closed his eyes, and for a moment Leonard thought he was going to fall back asleep when he muttered almost unintelligibly, “Can’t believe he did this.”

Leonard turned his head.

“Thought he would have been more clever.”  Jim added before slapped his hands down on his thighs.  He bounded up. 

“Same rules…”

Leonard raised an eyebrow, confused.

“Tie on the door, no walking around naked… all that…” Jim clarified.

_‘Course…_

The rules Leonard had laid out years ago when they first started rooming together.  He nodded his head. 

“I don’t know why they gave us so many rooms but getting another bed shouldn’t be that hard.”

Leonard looked at him confused.

“The bedroom… you didn’t look?”

Leonard shook his head.

“It’s a horrible color, large king bed.  You should go look.”  Jim added before heading to the door.

“Where you going?”  Leonard stammered out.

“Out… later,” Jim added before disappearing, again.

Leonard sank into the couch.  He could no long stomach the rest of his lunch.  He would eventually throw it down the replicator. 

He sat there for a long time, so long that he lost track of time. 

The sun was setting over the bay when his communicator vibrated.  He nearly jumped out of his skin.  When he reached for it and saw the name flashing up at him, he wanted to curse out at everything.

It was one of the last... life form in the world that he currently wanted to talk to. Because he was too smart, too straight forward, too everything that Leonard couldn’t handle at this moment.  He was tempted to not answer.  It wasn’t like he had to answer.  As long as they were still grounded, Leonard wasn’t forced to answer any of _his_ calls. 

But of course like Jim and maybe at times worse than Jim, fucking green hobgoblin didn’t understand when to quit.  He didn’t even know why Spock was contacting him.  On the fourth vibration, Leonard flipped open his communicator.  “McCoy here,” he answered gruffly.  However, there was no reply.

Maybe the world didn’t hate him.  Maybe for once Spock had contacted the wrong communicator.

Of course the moment that thought left his mind, his PADD lit up like a fucking Christmas tree.  On the screen, blaring and obvious, was a message from Spock requesting his presence at a coffee shop around the corner.

Of course the hobgoblin used the words ‘request your presence’ as if this was still the Victorian Era. 

He agreed because it was Spock, and he really didn’t have the energy to figure out a way to decline.  And maybe, maybe with everything going south and hard with Jim, he needed another opinion or something, even if it was Spock.

He took a quick shower, avoided any of the bedrooms, and dropped the rest of his lunch down the replicator before leaving the apartment.

He didn’t bother to leave Jim a note, because… because that wasn’t them.  Contrary to popular belief they weren’t joined at the hip.  They both had their own friends and own lives outside of each other.  It was just…

Leonard shook his head as he entered the elevator.  It was quick ride down and an even faster walk to the coffee shop.  Of course Spock was already there.  He was sitting in a booth in the far back corner, and he wasn’t alone.  He was with the second person in the world he currently didn’t want to see: Nyota Uhura.

At this rate he was surprised that Chekov, Sulu and Scotty weren’t also there.  Then he remembered Chekov was currently in Russia visiting family, and Sulu was in Japan reconnecting with his Japanese heritage.  While Scotty was at San Francisco Shipyard milling over the Enterprise repairs because he couldn’t bear for anyone else to do repairs on _his_ precious ship.

He almost walked right past the coffee shop, but of course then he saw Uhura wave at him.  She had that kind, knowing smile on her face, and Leonard, because his mama raised him with manners, was forced to walk inside.  He placed an order for a cup of strong, black coffee before walking over to the booth.  Uhura and Spock were both sitting on one side, which naturally meant he was forced to sit across from them.  At least it meant he had an escape route.

They were both wearing civilian clothes.  He wasn’t sure he had ever seen Spock in his own civilian clothes before.  He wasn’t even aware Spock owned civilian clothes. 

“We just got back from London,” Uhura stated as if she knew exactly what he was thinking, which at this point Leonard really, really couldn’t deal with.  The last thing he needed was both Spock and Uhura psychoanalyzing him.

Leonard nodded.  He held his tongue.

Spock took a sip of his tea, of course it was tea.  Spock never drank coffee. 

“We’re worried about you, Leonard,” Uhura continued.

_Here it comes._

He was glad when the barista brought his coffee at that moment.  He took a long sip, and nearly burned his tongue.  However, even that was better than acknowledging Uhura’s words.

“Spock saw it on his PADD.”

Leonard looked up confused.  He really was confused.

Spock picked up his PADD and set it across from him.  His eyes widened at the words and pictures that were displayed across the screen.

It was a picture of him and Jim, from just a few hours ago, in their apartment eating lunch.  With the ridiculous caption: ‘Just Friends or Lovers?  Has Captain Kirk Found his Ever After?’

“What the hell!”  Leonard cursed out.  He never expected Spock of all people to read the tabloids.  “This is ridiculous!  I never pegged you for reading the tabloids, Spock,”  Leonard chided.  He waved his hand, defensively.  “This stuff is crap.”

“This is the San Francisco Daily, Doctor,” Spock stated calmly.

Leonard’s eyes widened.  In the top left hand corner really was the symbol of San Francisco’s most respected newspaper source.  “What is the San Francisco Daily doing printing this nonsense.”

Uhura looked at him once before reaching for the PADD.  She had a set of sad eyes.  “It’s not just the San Francisco Daily.  It’s all over the news.  You’ve made headlines.”

Leonard’s eyes grew even larger.  He had expected something from the admiralty, but not this.  He thought they would at least have tact, but this… this was ridiculous.

“Great.” Leonard groaned.  He buried his face between his hands.

“Leonard…”  Uhura stated, kindly, as if he wasn’t almost ten years her senior.  She placed her hand on his arm.  He looked up.  She smiled at him once before getting up.  She gently squeezed his shoulder before disappearing.  Leonard looked from her disappearing figure back to Spock, who had returned to sipping his tea.

“Nyota believes we should talk alone, man to man.”  Spock started.  He sounded as analytical as ever, like a fucking computer.

Leonard was tempted to just walk away.  It was only his fucking manners that kept him there.

“You and the captain… Jim,” Spock amended quickly.

_And here it comes._

“You are best friends.”

Leonard decided not to correct Spock for once because after this morning… after the last few weeks he really didn’t know what they were.  He simply took a sip of his coffee.

“Using a human phrase,”  Spock paused for a moment.   “You care for him,” Spock continued.  “Similar to how I care about Nyota.”

“And Jim cares for you.”

Now Leonard wanted to laugh.  He was never going to tell the hobgoblin this, but he had never been more wrong.

“You do not believe me.”

“Spock,” Leonard held up his hand.  He wasn’t sure he could handle any more of this.  “Where are you going with all this?”

“I am not ‘going’ anywhere with this.”  Spock replied.

_Of fucking course…_

“However my point is… when we first met, you once compared Jim to a prized stallion.”

He did remember that.

“At the time, I found your… analogy… to be strange, for a stallion must first be broken before it can achieve its potential.”

Leonard blinked.  He really, really did not know where Spock was going with all this.

“However, I hate to admit it, but maybe you are correct.”

If he wasn’t in such a lousy mood, maybe he could have savored this moment.  Instead, he took another sip of his coffee.  At least it burned less now.

“Even a prized stallion needs to be nurtured, given a chance.  You don't leave it behind even if it loses a race.”

Leonard blinked.

“As you humans say, 'give him a chance, Leonard'.  He does care.  He just doesn’t realize it yet.  With that, I leave you, Doctor.”  Spock nodded at him once before leaving.  He watched as Spock arched his arm a little to create a pocket for Uhura to slip her arm through.  Together they disappeared out the coffee shop.

“God fucking damn it…” Leonard cursed under his breath.

 

*************

 

He sat in that coffee shop long after Spock and Uhura left.  He couldn’t bear to go back to that apartment, and he was still ‘banned’ from taking anymore hours at Starfleet Medical.  He wondered if one of his nurses finally looked at his hours or something.

It was almost midnight when he left the coffee shop.  It was long after closing time and long after he over stayed his welcome.  It was one of the perks of serving as chief medical officer of the Federation flag ship.

When he arrived back the apartment, the door was slightly ajar.  He felt himself bristle.

He could have sworn he had closed it when he left.

He walked into the apartment, and his blood ran dry. 

The moans and cries from the back of the apartment told him enough.  He recognized those moans from anywhere.  They belonged to Jim and whoever it was he brought back with him.

_God fucking damn it…_

As he walked into the kitchen, he wondered why this bothered him all of a sudden.  It wasn’t like this was the first time.  He always, always knew Jim wasn’t a saint.  Hell, even during their days at the academy, Jim frequently brought men, women, aliens of unknown genders, back to their apartment.  It wasn’t like he didn’t know Jim was always loud. 

He knew Jim didn’t do relationships.

He knew Jim didn’t like commitment.

That was why he never acted, because he didn’t want to be a mark on Jim’s bed post. 

“Fuck you Spock,” he muttered as he popped open a bottle of hard bourbon. 

 

*************

 

He awoke to a persistent tapping noise.  He groaned as he opened his eyes to be greeted by a woman with unruly bubble gum pink hair and equally grotesque neon green eye shadow.  She was wearing a highly offensive safety yellow tunic and fire hydrant red bloomers.  It made Leonard’s head hurt.

“Who the fuck are you?”

She tapped her heels again, and Leonard groaned again.  It really, really made his head hurt.

“Can you stop that?”  He muttered.  He managed to sit up.  His head still hurt.   He had fallen asleep on the couch, cradling that bottle of bourbon, now empty. 

She let out an incomprehensible noise from her lips.  She reminded him of his mama when he did something that displeased her. 

“I’m Eldena, and that is Maximus.”  She pointed behind him.  Leonard almost jumped.  He hadn’t noticed the other man in the room.  Maximus seemed like the antithesis of Eldena.  While she looked like a rainbow had exploded all over her, Maximus was all black and white.  He was in a black and white suit.  His deep black hair was heavily gelled back.  He reminded Leonard of a butler.

“We are you and Captain Kirk’s PR team.”

“PR team?”  Leonard raised an eyebrow.  “Why the fuck do I need a PR team?”

Eldena tapped her foot again.  She bent down and wiped her finger over his chin.  She held it up to him.  It was wet.

_God fucking damn it…_

“Eldena, be nice.”  Maximus cooed.  His voice, which was extremely high-pitched and nasal, did not match his appearance at all.  He clapped his hands together.  “Where is the captain anyways?  Why are you sleeping out here?”  He asked accusingly, as if those were the worst offensives in the world.  He shook his head, once, then twice.  “This just won’t do.”  He picked up one of the photos on the mantel and marched it in front of Leonard’s face.  It was of him and Jim.  Jim had thrown his arms around him.  They were laughing.  “This!"  He shook the photo.   "You’re supposed to be like this.”

Leonard wanted to laugh.  Because that Jim and that Leonard, he doubted that was even them anymore.

Maximus moved backwards. He set the photo down.  “Maybe he’s in the bedroom?”   Maximus whipped his head around.  Before Leonard could stop him, maybe warn him, Maximus had started for the hallway.  He bolted upwards.  His head spun, but he still rushed to follow the other man.  He heard Eldena follow.

“Oh captain,” Maximus cooed, pulling each door open.  Leonard hadn’t realized how many doors were in this apartment.  He never made it past the bathroom.

He was almost thinking that maybe Jim had left when Maximus threw open the last door.  Jim's ridiculously bright gold tie was hanging on the door knob.  He remembered when Jim bought that ridiculous thing.

Maximus let out a loud shriek.  He threw both hands up to his chest.  He reminded Leonard of a little kid, a very annoying little kid.  

The first thing Leonard noticed was that is seemed Jim had in fact procured a bed.  The second thing he noticed, the one that had obviously caused Maximus' outburst was that Jim wasn't alone.  In fact he was very much not alone.

An Orion girl, she looked to be only twenty, was currently in bed with him. Jim’s head was pooled on her bosom.  Jim's eyes were tightly closed.  He didn't seem to notice their presence.

Leonard knew about Orion women pheromones.  The allure it has on males.  He heard plenty about them from Jim during their time at the Academy.

The Orion girl, who was currently running her fingers lazily through Jim's blond hair, waved at them.  

"Captain!"  Eldena stepped forward.  Being the sole female, she was not affected.  She yanked the sheet angrily from the bed.  

And a second Orion female, a twin of the other, whose mouth was wrapped tightly around Jim's cock, looked up at her, then him.  She winked at him once before returning to her ministrations.

No wonder Jim hadn't noticed.

Eldena on the other hand just became more annoyed.  She seemed to be a woman on a mission, a woman who had to get her way.  She was fierce.  Her heels clanked on the floor as she stepped closer to the bed.  "Out!  Now!"  She shouted.  

The Orion girl looked up.  Her mouth separated from Jim's cock. She looked mildly annoyed.

Jim's eyes snapped open.  "What the fuck!"  He looked passed Eldena to Leonard.  "Bones?"  He asked.  "Who the hell are these people?"

"Eldena and Maximus," Maximus chirped.  That man was going to give Leonard a headache.  "We're your PR team, Captain."

"Fuck."  Jim raised his head and leaned again the head board.  

"Time to go?"  The one next to Jim asked, regrettably.    

"Unfortunately," Jim answered.  

She nodded before slipping out of bed. Before leaving, she pressed a hard and passionate kiss to Jim's lips.  Jim looked starry eyed for a moment.  Leonard couldn't help but look away.  She collected her dress, a white, glittering thing, before motioning for her twin.  The rolled from the bed and grabbed her own dress.  It was similar to her sister's only black instead of white.  The twin, the one who was giving Jim a blow job, stepped past him first.  While the other one stopped in front of him, she looked at him once then twice before turning back to Jim.  "Good catch.  Maybe we can have a foursome next time?"  

Jim didn't answer, and Leonard... Leonard decided he just wanted to go die somewhere.  She squeezed his shoulder once before disappearing.

Jim recovered first.  He hasty grabbed the pillow the Orion girl had vacated and dropped it over his waist.  "Who are you again?"  He looked deeply annoyed.  Any other day, and any other time Leonard would have understood.

"Your PR team," Eldena answered.  She stepped away from the bed, dropped the sheet back onto the bed which Jim immediately threw over himself. She then walked to the window and pulled open the drapes.  The sun was blindingly bright.  Both Leonard and Jim cringed.  Leonard because he still felt hung over, and Jim because he was probably still riding on his high.

"Why the hell do I need a PR team?"

Eldena turned up her nose.  

Maximus clapped before stepping into the room.  That all too familiarly annoying smile on his face.  "Dear captain, you and the doctor need all the help in the world," he said sagely, nodding his head.  He pressed both hands down on the bed.

"And what a dreadful, dreadful bed.  It must go, all of it.  Everything..."  He clapped his hands again.  "This will be exciting."

 

**********

 

_Exciting his ass..._

An hour later, after both he and Jim showered and changed, Eldena and Maximus explained exactly what their roles were.  Maximus, thank god, was in charge of their wardrobe and makeup, while Eldena was in charge of their ‘engagements’ and ‘public appearances’. It turned out it was Eldena who 'leaked' that article to the San Francisco Daily.  The other newspapers had followed suit like wild fire.

"Federation morale has increased by two percent.  The Federation is highly invested in the romance between the golden omega captain and his grumpy alpha doctor.”

Leonard twitched in his seat. 

“The hell!”  Jim spoke the words for him.

Eldena didn't seem the notice.  “The admiralty's predictions are indeed correct.  In times of darkness, it’s the little things like love and new life that means the most.” Eldena sounded like she was reading propaganda papers to them.  

Leonard twitched further.  "That doesn't mean anything."

This time it was Maximus who spoke.  "But it does!  It means everything."  He clapped his hands together again.  He was starting to remind Leonard of a river otter or one of those mechanical monkey toys that could only clap its cymbals together.  “You go to: give them what they want.  Show some southern charm, Doctor.  Give them that Kirk smile, Captain.”

Leonard twitched even harder.

“You’ve been scheduled for an appearance on the evening show tonight.”

“The evening show?”  Leonard choked out.  The evening show was one of the largest and most popular programs on the airwaves.  It was watched by billions.  It was broad casted all over the Federation.

“Yes, we’ll make the announcement.”

“What announcement?”

Maximus smiled.  He pointed from Leonard, to Jim, and finally down to Jim’s abdomen. 

_Great…_

**********

 

Eight hours later, Leonard found himself sitting on a way too lumpy couch, lathered in too much face powder and blue eye shadow, and sweating under a set of extremely bright lights.

He was in his medical blues while Jim was in his command gold. 

And he was learning yet again why and how Jim made captain.  Sitting in that sound stage with Jim, he almost did believe they were okay, that they were a couple, and that Jim wanted the baby.  The words rolled from Jim’s lips so easily. 

The story that Eldena had spun for them, spilled from Jim’s lips as if it was the truth.  That they had fallen in love on that fateful shuttle ride out of Riverside Shipyard.  That they shared their first kiss, abet indirectly over Leonard’s hip flask within minutes of meeting each other.

He just sat there, nodding his head.

Most of all, he hated it because of how close to the truth it all was, at least for him.  He might as well have fallen in love with Jim that day.  That he did follow Jim to the black because of love.  That he would never leave Jim behind, because he had been left behind by so many others.

Because of all this and more, he played the part of the ‘blushing’ lover.  Maximus seemed to be close to tears from sheer happiness while there was even a smile on Eldena’s face. 

Then, Leonard’s world stopped…

It one hundred percent stopped.

It started when the host, smiling and beaming, he too was obviously and hopelessly charmed said the four words that changed everything.  “I got a surprise.” 

And the large holo screen that was mounted on the wall behind them, which up until this moment was blank, lit up.

A smiling, happy little girl with Leonard’s hazel eyes and honey suckle brown hair appeared.

“Daddy!” She shrieked.

A name Leonard McCoy hadn’t been called in nearly five years.

“Jo.”


	9. Chapter 9

_Bones has a daughter._

_A daughter he never told him about._  

Jim clenched the armrest of the couch and tried to keep a smile on his face.

He watched as Bones' face lightened up.  He seemed to have gotten ten years younger.  Jim forced the lump in his throat down.

It was almost as if Bones had forgotten that they were still on the airways.  He smiled and laughed as the little girl told him how she had just won first place in her riding competition, the disaster that was her puppy, and how hot Atlanta was.

And then the other shoe dropped, the reason the admiralty had set this up.

"Miz Eldena says I can come to San Francisco and stay with you for the rest of the summer, Daddy!"

 

**********

 

The taxi ride and the walk back to their, fuck he still wasn’t used to _that_ , apartment was a quiet one.  Bones still looked shell shocked and Jim, Jim was just tired.  All he wanted to do was go to sleep. 

Despite popular belief, Jim hated the limelight.  He rather spend his whole life in the stars then back here in San Francisco, dealing with all this bureaucratic crap.  The five year mission program had been postponed on account of Khan, but Jim was still hoping to get it despite how ‘illogical’ it was according to Spock.  

"I'm going to bed, Bones."  

"Jim," Bones called out.  He grabbed his wrist.  Jim turned.  Bones' face mirrored his own, full of trepidation.

"Aren't you..."

"Aren't I what?  Going to ask about your kid?  Why you never mentioned her?"  The words slipped out of Jim's lips. He was suddenly angry.  He hadn't even been angry until he started talking.

Bones dropped his hand.  "Yeah."

"What is there to ask?"  Jim laughed.  He threw back his head and laughed.  "What is there to say?  You got another omega pregnant.  Convinced her to have a kid with you and then bolted.  Then you did it to me."  As the last words slipped from Jim's mouth, he realized he went over the line.

Bones blinked.  He stepped backwards.  He didn't look angry.  In fact, he just looked sad, hollow and sad.  "Is that what you think of me, Jim Kirk?  That I'll leave you even though I fucking followed you into the fucking black?!"

"Why shouldn’t I?" Jim snapped back.    

"God," Bones shook his head.  "If you don't know now, then you'll never know."  Bones turned on his heels.

"What’s that supposed to mean?!"  Jim shouted.  "Where’re you going?"  He shouted as Bones headed for the door.

Bones whipped around.  "Out!  Somewhere!  Maybe I'll go get myself a mindless fuck like you keep doing!"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"  Jim grabbed Bones' wrist, twisting Bones back around.  He pulled him forward, so they were only millimeters apart.

"You know what that means.  I ain't blind or deaf, Jim Kirk. Now let me go!"  Bones roared.  He twisted his arm, trying to break away.

"No."  

"No?"  Bones raised an eyebrow.

"Not until you tell me what the hell is wrong with you!"

"What's wrong with me?!"  Bones laughed.  "Nothing is wrong with me."

Jim rolled his eyes.  He glanced down at the empty bourbon bottle.  "Right, you know what, forget it.  Go."  He released him.  "Go and leave your trail of bastards."

"Fuck you, Jim!"  Bones shouted.

"Fuck me."  Jim laughed.  "Yeah.  You did want to fuck me.  Didn't you?  Is that what's wrong, Bones?  Do you want to fuck me again?"  

Bones turned his head.  He was angry.  His eyes never looked greener.  He pressed a long, savage kiss against Jim's lips.  He shoved his tongue into Jim's mouth, hard and rough.  Their teeth clattered and ground against each other.  For a moment, Jim was stunned.  Stunned that Bones had kissed him.  However he found himself melting into that kiss.  He returned it equal ferocity as Bones backed them against the wall.  

The kisses grew more frantic, more brutal as Bones maneuvered his hands towards his pants.  Jim felt the button of his pants pop before they slid down to his ankles. 

He whimpered against Bones’ tongue at how hard he had gotten.  He knew Bones was equally hard.  He let out a small cry as Bones flipped him around.  Pressing his hands against the walls, Bones pressed into him.  He was rough and hard.  Unlike the last time they had done this… in a similar situation, he wasn't as slick anymore.  He almost came as Bones hit that sweet spot before he pulled out halfway.  

Bones bit into his neck.  Hard and fast, he sucked against his skin.  Jim nearly protested.  He nearly pushed away as Bones hit that spot again.  He saw a ray of color, felt Bones' knot inflate and fill him up before he came long and hard. His juices filled the rest of the crevice.

They collapsed onto the floor, sticky and tired.  He looked up at Bones.  There was a horrified look on his face.  He must have realized what they had just done.  "Jim, fuck... "

Jim stopped him.  Still riding from the sex high, a high he realized he had been trying to get for days now: at Madam Orion's and then with the Orion girls, he kissed him again. 

Hard and fast…

A tiny voice in the back of his head, told him to stop.  They needed to stop, but another part of Jim, the animalistic part of him couldn’t.

It was that part that won…

That part that caused Jim to draw him up once Bones’ knot had deflated.  He stepped out of his pants before pulling Bones to the couch.  He pushed him down.  Bones was wild eyed.  It seemed what his mind didn't understand; his body did.  Jim smiled as he watched Bones' cock jumped to life.  Bones' fluids, though some was running down his legs, provided the necessary lubrication as he sat down on Bones' cock.  

He wrapped his legs around Bones' side before pressing his lips against Bones'.  He didn't stop him and that was enough for Jim...

 

**********

 

He awoke the next morning to an empty couch.  He didn't even have to get up to know that Bones had disappeared.  Jim sank deeper into the couch.  The couch they had all but destroyed from the night’s escapades.  The admiralty was going to have a field day with that one.

He sat up.  He felt so sore and tired until he noticed the PADD on the table.  It was one of Bones'.  He picked it up, intrigued when he noticed that Bones had left a note for him.

It was short.  Only three lines long…

_Sorry about last night, it'll never happen again.  As for Joanna, I didn't want to leave her; Jocelyn ... well... I didn't lie then, Jim.  She took everything._

Jim threw the PADD down.  

"Fuck."

Of course that's what happened.  He even knew that was probably what happened until the moment Bones asked.  

There was a reason he had trusted Bones that night.  Because Bones... Bones wasn't like all the other alphas in the world.

He didn't know what to do about _them_ , but there was something Jim could do for Bones.  Maybe as a peace offering...

He took a long shower, long enough to wash away the last of Bones' seed.  

_At least this time nothing would come of it._

  
He pulled on his black undershirt, black trousers and command gold before leaving the apartment.

 

**********

 

“No,” that was the first words out of Jim’s lips the moment he stormed into Admiral Nyes’ office.  The man looked up from his PADD, a smile on his face.

“James, what a pleasant surprise, the gold suits you much better than the civilian wear,” he added.  “By the way, you were a hit.  The numbers are off the charts.” 

Jim wasn’t sure he had ever seen Admiral Nyes so… excited before.

“No” he said again.

“No?”

“Bones,” Jim started.  “His daughter.”  He continued. 

Bones and his daughter… two words he still couldn’t wrap his head around.

“I know.  Eldena is a genius.  I didn’t even know Bones had a daughter.”  Nyes smiled.  “And from the footage, it seems you didn’t either…  Seems even your precious doctor has secrets.”

“He isn’t _my_ doctor,” Jim spat out, almost too quickly.

Nyes laughed.  “Of course not.”  He dropped the PADD that he was looking at.  “But tell me James, why are you here?”

"Why the hell is Dr. McCoy caught up in this mess?"  Jim slammed his PADD down on Admiral Nyes' desk.  It contained Eldena' plans for the next two weeks before Joanna’s arrival.  They involved more talk shows, photo shoots with fashion and lifestyle magazines like Variety and Elle to the horrid maternity ones like Omega Now and Baby Bump, and 'dates' with Bones.  

Nyes shook his head.  Jim noted how he lingered at his abdomen area, the area Jim refused to acknowledge. "James, James, Dr. McCoy has been a part of the equation since he fathered that child.  This is a package deal.  We're promoting hope… family... love.”  Nyes picked up a pen. He tapped it against the table, a little bored before continuing.  “You and I both know there was no love involved in making that baby, but the world cannot know that.  The Federation ratings haven't been this low since the Kelvin incident."

Jim clenched his fist.

“Besides Dr. McCoy has already agreed, didn’t he tell you?”  Nyes chided.  “After we had our little talk,” Nyes pointed at Jim and back at himself.  There was a smile on his face, one that looked like he had won.  “Dr. McCoy and I also had a little chat.   He was much easier to convince than you.”  Nyes laughed.  “Surely from this, you must have learned.  There is so much about him you just have no idea about."

He felt a chill run down his spine and tried to push it away.

_Damn it, Bones._

“And his daughter.”

Nyes laughed.  “His sweet daughter, the little girl is a hit by the way, was simply a pleasant and wonderful bonus.”

Once he was sure he couldn’t hate an admiral as much as Marcus, but at that moment, he decided he hated Nyes more. 

“No.”

“No?”

“Joanna is not going to be a part of this,” Jim waved his hand, “charade.”

“Oh?  And how are you going to prevent that, James?”  Nyes looked down at his finger nails.  “Especially since she is so _excited_ to see her ‘daddy’ again after all this time.”  He stressed the word ‘excited’ so much that it almost made Jim cringe.  “You should have seen her face when we contacted her.  She’s quite an angel from what I’ve heard and seen.  She was most excited about having another brother or sister.  She already has three or four.”  Nyes added, like it was after thought, not someone’s life.

“She can come to San Francisco,” Jim acquiesced.  He remembered how happy Bones had looked.  He couldn’t ever remember seeing Bones that happy.

“Oh, you give us permission?”  Nyes grinned. 

Jim pressed his hands onto the desk.  He leaned forward so that Nyes could see him directly.  “She’s not going to be a part of Eldena’s plans.  You’re not going to parade her around too; otherwise,” Jim pressed his hand harder into Nyes’ desk, as a focal point.  He needed to keep calm.  He had learned that.  “I walk.” 

Nyes looked at him with that annoying smile on his face.  “You can’t walk, James,” Nyes replied, as if he was bored.  As if he wasn’t talking about lives… as if this was all just a game, and maybe it was.

Jim narrowed his eyes.

Nyes continued.  “If you walk, Leonard McCoy goes to court.  He’ll lose his license.  Don’t you remember?”

Jim almost smiled.  It took all his resolve to not smile; he knew he had at least won this one.  “I doubt that’ll matter now.  You pulled the wrong card, Admiral, bringing Joanna in.  If she is used, I walk.”

The admiral shook his head.  He rubbed his brow.  “You’re a smart man, James.  I’ll give you that much.  But,” Nyes smiled.  “Not smart enough.  I’ll tell you what I told the doctor.  Joanna won’t be used in any more talk shows.”

Jim narrowed his eyes.  He could tell there was a catch.

“But James,” Nyes tapped his pen against his desk again.  “You can’t hide her away forever.  Your mother…”

“Don’t talk about my mother,” Jim snapped.

“Sorry,” Nyes responded although Jim knew he wasn’t the least bit apologetic.  “You should know.  You should understand.  You can’t hide her away forever.  She’s associated with you now, whether you like it or not.  Whatever are you going to do, James?”

Jim did understand.  He knew exactly what Nyes meant. 

By even showing her once to the Federation, just once, that was enough.  Starfleet can’t control the media.  His mother had tried to protect him once.  She had tried to shield him and his brother away.  That’s why she had left them in god-no-where fucking Iowa.

But damn it…

He was going to protect that little girl.

He was going to protect Bones’ daughter, because she was Bones’. 

Even though he didn’t even know she existed until yesterday. 

 

**********

 

“Cut!” 

Jim and Bones both looked up.  The spoon was still mid-way to Jim’s mouth.  A furious Eldena stepped forward.  Her face matched her hair.  It was as equally red.

“Don’t be so nervous,” she gritted out.  She looked at them once before turning around.  She held up a finger.  “Can we have a minute?”

The director, a short pump man who Jim was sure was missing half his brain, at least, nodded.  His entourage quickly followed, leaving them alone.

Eldena turned around the moment they disappeared.  She glared at them.  “This is all wrong!  We need more love, more tenderness, more...”

“Spark!”  Maximus shouted from the back of the room.

Eldena rolled her eyes.  “You two aren’t going to fool anybody with this.  You’re like two…”

“Logs,” Maximus supplied again.

Eldena turned her head.  “Yes, thank you,” she responded curtly.

Maximus nodded back, a smile on his face.

“Whatever is wrong with you two, you better fix it.”  Eldena tapped her watch once, then twice.  “We’ll take ten.”

“Ten!”  Maximus shouted.  He stepped forward as Eldena walked away.  He set the plate of cake down on the towel, winked knowingly at them before disappearing.

The moment they were alone, Jim felt the distance between him and Bones, that distance that was growing bigger and bigger with each passing day.

“God damn it, I’m a doctor not a model,” Bones grumbled under his breath.

Jim chuckled, a little louder than he intended.  He saw Bones slip him a wayward glance before looking away.

This was the first time they saw each other after… that night. The night Jim exploded.  The night Jim said all those cruel things to Bones.  The night they fucked each other senseless in their living room.

He was surprised Bones had even showed up for this. 

He knew by wayward mouth, Uhura, that Bones had been sleeping in his office at Starfleet Medical.  He had managed to escape that encounter.

For now…

“You could be a model,” the words slipped from Jim’s lips.  There was a thousand things he could have said, should have said.  That was the last thing he meant to say.

Bones gave him a particularly high eyebrow raise.  There was a noticeable twitch at the corner of his lips.

Before he could say anything else Eldena and Maximus returned.  The director and camera men were trailing behind.

"We'll going to try a photo shoot instead.  Captain with Maximus.  Doctor, you’ll sit out for the first set."

"Thank God."  

He watched as Bones disappeared through a set of doors.  Unfortunately he wasn't as luckily.  Maximus bounded forward and grabbed him by the wrist. "I’m going to make you look most beautiful."  Maximus beamed.

He lead him outside and back to his trailer.  His black and white trailer where similarly everything inside was also black and white.

He stood there in the foyer as Maximus disappeared.  He returned moments later with two sheer, almost see through, pieces of cloth.  "Oh hell no."

He could just imagine the next time he met up with a Klingon or some other hostile alien nation if these photos ever leaked out of Federation air space and even that Jim wasn’t sure he could deal with.

A frown appeared on Maximus' face.  "But this is classic."

"Absolutely not."

"But we already agreed."

"No.  Besides how will seminude pictures help boost morale?"

"You'd be surprised."  There was a mischievous grin on his face.  "Besides it’s artistic."

"No."

"It'll be a good memory keep stake."

That was the last thing Jim needed.

“No.”

"What if,” Maximus tapped the side of his cheek, “we took some now?  You keep the prints, and if you change your mind we'll run them?"

"And what are you going to give your magazine?"

"We'll take something else.” Maximus hurriedly responded.  “Deal?"

He knew Maximus wouldn't let this go.  "I get all the prints?"

Maximus smiled.  "Yes."

Ten minutes later Jim was regretting his decision.  He found himself standing in front of a pair of offensively bright lights.  The pieces of cloth like he figured, barely, barely left anything to the imagination.  His belly had been lathered in olive oil, so it glistened.  It made him sick.

Most of all he had to touch it, be reminded it was there.  That there was a fucking parasite growing inside of him.

At least he couldn’t feel it move, yet.  He just knew he was going to flip out the day that started.  

Half the time he spent horrible denial of the whole thing.  The other half of the time, he was having mind numbing sex and trying to convince himself that he was just fat.

He quickly stomped those thoughts from his head when Eldena shouted at him.

She and Maximus both looked regretful as they handed him the prints in an envelope.  He forced them to replicate a camera that only took film.  He was going to burn them the moment he got home.

After another wardrobe change, Bones joined him halfway through the shoot. 

And damn, did he look good.  Really, really good.

Jim called it a success when his cock didn't betray him.  Of course, the moment Bones stepped up to him, it all passed.  He barely looked at him.  That huge chasm might have gotten even bigger.

The 'staged' dinner went just as horribly.   He was glad Eldena called off the movie.  She gave the excuse that they were all tired.  However when the crew left, she stopped them both.

"Fix it."  She snapped at them as her goodbye.

  


**********

 

Bones cited emergency surgeries as his reason for missing their next two sessions, and for that Jim was eternally grateful.

He was less grateful when Spock showed up at his office on the third day.

He watched as Spock closed the door after stepping inside.  He placed his hands behind his back.  "Captain."

"Spock."  Jim replied warily.  

"As first officer, I believe it is my duty to come speak to you."

Jim blinked.  He wondered how much of this was professional and how much was personal.  "Yes Spock."

"I would offer my congratulations; however, they don't seem ... appropriate in these circumstances."

Jim twitched.  "What are you talking about, Spock?"  He asked although he already knew.  

"From my dealings with humans, I had always assumed the day you and the doctor got together would have been a joyous occasion for you both."

"It's bad to assume Spock," Jim chided.

"That would be true if it was unfounded, Captain,” Spock continued.  “I spoke to Dr. McCoy a week ago.  After..." Spock cleared his throat.  "You were discharged..."

Jim visibly flinched.  

"At the time, he found the article to be outrageous.  Then, not even a day had past and you and the doctor were announcing your relationship on Federation airways.  Most peculiar.”

Jim has to bite back a groan.  He should have guessed this would happen.

And really there were only two paths forward.

He could tell Spock the truth, or he could not.

It wasn’t like he couldn’t lie to Spock.  He just… rather not.

Instead Jim settled for the half-truth.  He hoped Spock would understand.  He shrugged his shoulders.  “They believe it.  The _admiralty_ believes it.  Why don’t you believe it?”  He probably stressed the word ‘admiralty’ more than he should have.  He saw Spock get a tad greener.

“I understand.”  He stepped forward.  “If there is…”

Jim smiled that half smile, the one that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Whatever is your reason, you do have friends, Jim.”

“Thanks, Spock.”

“And Jim…” Spock added.  “A true friendship only comes around once or twice in a life time.”

And Jim knew Spock wasn’t talking about them, but him and Bones.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Spock nodded once before disappearing.

Jim sank back into his chair.  He ran his fingers through his hair.

 

**********

 

Bones was back in their apartment when he arrived.  He was sitting on their couch, drinking from one of their cups.

He looked up the moment Jim walked inside.  So Jim might have taken a little longer to toe off his shoes than normal.

He grabbed a glass of water from the kitchen before sitting down across from Bones. He crossed his legs.  Bones quickly looked away.

"Bones."

"Jim."

They started at the same time and stopped at the same time.  The hesitation lingered in the air, he swore this was not them.  Spock was right.  Of course his first officer was right.  His friendship with Bones did matter.  

"I am sorry."  They both said at the same time, and then stopped at the same time again.

"I should have told you about Jo."

"I shouldn't have said those things."

Jim held up a finger.  Bones nodded.  He scratched the back of his neck.  "I over reacted.  I... better than anyone else should have realized, we both got our demons."

Bones laughed.  It was a raw laugh, one that sound more sarcastic than happy.  "I should have told you.  Should have known this would happen... In light of everything...."  He trailed off.  

"So... Jocelyn?"

"Yeah," Bones nodded.  "Life imploded. Found Jocelyn fucking another alpha.  I was too tired and she ..."

"Took everything but your bones."  Jim finished.  Those words Bones had said to him so long ago.

"Yeah."  Bones nodded.  

Jim sighed.  "She'll be here in three days."

"Yeah."

"What do you want to tell her?"

"I don't know, Jim.  I don't know.  Guess, I never really thought this through.  This.., whatever the fuck the admiralty is trying to do.  I don't want to pretend we are in a...." He flinched.  "Relationship around her."

Jim nodded quickly, maybe a little too quickly.  He wondered if he saw Bones' face darken for a moment.

"They say they won't use her.  We won't pretend at home."

_Home..._

Of course Joanna would have to stay with them.  That was when he got uncomfortable.

Bones' smell seemed to envelope him at that moment.  The scent that did a thousand and one things to him. That made all his nightmares, problems and hatred surface.

He suddenly... suddenly realized he had to get out of the apartment... Find something... Anyone to make him forget.  He bolted upwards, stumbled into a pair of shoes and sprinted out the door.

He made it to the wharf in record time... before his throat closed up.  Before he felt like a thousand knives were cutting into him.  

He tumbled into the arms of the first alpha he came upon.  In a dark alley with rotten fish smell, Jim pressed up against a damp wall and his legs eagle splayed for the world to see, the alpha took him hard and fast.  

  


**********

 

It took two more days, two more days of mindless fucks before Jim returned to the apartment.  Bones was there.  He looked tired and terrible.  There were dark rings around his eyes.  Jim felt guilty, for he knew he was the cause of them.

Bones held up his hand before Jim could say anything.

"Jo's going to be here tomorrow.  If there is any, any amount of anything left from the friendship we once had.  Please don't mess this up."  He sounded so broken.  It felt like an ultimatum, like Bones was leaving him too.

Jim just nodded.  

Because what else could he do?

They had gone to bed soon afterwards.  In an apartment with too many rooms, it still felt like there wasn't enough space between them.  Jim barely slept.  A thousand thoughts filtered through his head, and all of them lead to Bones.

He had done the one thing that Spock had warned him about.

  
He had royally fucked up.

 

**********

  
Joanna's shuttle arrived before noon.

They waited outside the hanger deck as her shuttle touched down.  He saw how tense Bones was as the shuttle came into view.  Bones might have gotten over his aviophobia over the years, or so he claimed, but Jim knew he was still hesitant about shuttle travel.  He wanted to reach over and take Bones’ hand, tell him those things were pretty safe.

However in reality he flexed his hand and looked away.

Just like the first time Jim had seen her face appear on the holo screen, Joanna McCoy was a big ball of energy.  She was like the antithesis of Bones.  She ran to him and threw her arms around his waist.  "Daddy!"  She cried out joyfully before pulling away.

Bones turned them both towards Jim. Suddenly, Jim wished he hadn’t come.  He wasn’t exactly sure why he came.  Bones hadn’t asked him to.  He just did.

He pressed a hand to Joanna’s back before speaking.  "Jo, this Jim, Jim Kirk."

Joanna, besides the hair, looked almost exactly like Bones.  She even had his glare.  "So you're like to Daddy, like Mama is to Clay," Joanna stated.

"Joanna!"  Bones gasped out.

Joanna looked at him once, twice, before turning to look at Bones.  "But the news says so.  Didn't you say so too, Daddy?"


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, sorry for the delay...
> 
> Real life exploded in the last few weeks.

Joanna’s arrival changed things.  Jim wasn’t sure if it was for the better or for the worst.  

Joanna McCoy was ten-years-old going on thirty.  She was smart and well behaved, not at all like Jim when he was ten.

However like a typical prepubescent girl, she was more interested in the latest fashions and next ‘big thing’, all of which was at a large surplus in San Francisco.  

Jim noted there was a slight hesitation between him and Joanna, like she didn’t know what to make of him.  When Bones wasn’t around, which wasn’t often, thankfully, Joanna usually spent that time in her room.  They had given her one of the two remaining bedrooms. That was fine with Jim, because he too didn’t know what to do with Joanna.  He wasn’t good with kids, hadn’t been for years not since...

Still Jim would have to call these last few days a success.  He hadn’t felt the urge to fuck someone since Joanna’s arrival.  Sure, the large chasm between him and Bones was getting so wide that even the fucking Golden Gate Bridge would not be long enough to bridge the gap, but Joanna managed to fill in the quietness that Jim wasn’t sure had ever been there before, not even at the beginning when they first met each other all those years ago.

When she wasn’t engrossed in her music or holo-magazines, she would enthusiastically show them all the pictures she had taken while in San Francisco and all the pictures was dying to take.  It was clear she couldn’t wait to share them with her friends back home.

And Joanna, Joanna was a good photographer.  Jim knew talent when he saw it.  He had too for his line of work.

However most of all, Eldena and Maximus hadn’t shown up in their apartment for a while now.  Jim hadn’t seen them since their last canceled date, and for a while Jim thought maybe they gave up.  Maybe they found someone more interesting than Jim to parade around.  

That was his first mistake.

Jim awoke that Sunday morning, almost a week since Joanna’s arrival to the smell of pancakes and bacon.

He pulled on his shirt and a pair of shorts, grimacing at the fact that it felt tighter today than it had the day before.  

Another change…

He couldn’t parade around in his underwear anymore, not with Bones’ kid in the house.

He stretched and tilted his head.  

Big mistake…

Doing so, he caught his reflection in the bathroom mirror.  

He had been avoiding looking in mirrors for a while now, since he found out.

There was a roundness to his face that he hadn’t noticed.  A slightly pronounced arch to his once flat chest area.  Most of all, there was a noticeable bump around his once flat waistline, one that was starting to morph from the allusion that he was just gaining fat to...

He lowered his hand downwards.

Down…

Further down…

Towards his waistline…

To the bump…

He pulled back at the last second…

Flinching reflectively…

“Captain Kirk?”  

He spun around, a fake, plastered smile on his face to find Joanna standing at the doorway with a smiling Maximus.  Like always, he was dressed in a jet black suit.  His arms were draped lazily around Joanna’s shoulder, like the devil ensnaring its next prey.  

Jim shook his head and widened his smile.

“Joanna, Maximus.”

“Your bond daughter is so cute,” Maximus gushed out, wrapping his arms tighter around Joanna’s shoulders.  

_Bond.. Daughter..._

Joanna looked up at him, a questionable look on her face.

Maximus continued as if he didn’t notice.  “Well technically not yet, but bond daughter sounds so much better than stepdaughter and all that, and you and the doctor will be bonding soon anyways.”  He fluttered his eyelashes.  “I knew someone who had an unbonded birth.  It was…”

Jim saw the way Joanna’s eyes widen.  

“Maximus!”

He noticed how both he and Joanna let out a sigh as Eldena broke off Maximus’ train of thought.  

“Sorry, sorry.  Completely inappropriate for little ears.”  Maximus petted the top of her head.  “Anyways, time for breakfast…”  He let Joanna go, and Eldena followed.  There was a disapproving look on her face as she pivoted on her heels. However, before Jim could past him, Maximus pulled at his arm.  “The alphas from around the district swarmed him.  You don’t want that do you?  The Federation has eyes…”

“Are you threatening me?”  

“No, of course.  Just advice, advice for you, your doctor, your cute bond daughter and your,” Maximus answered in that cheerful voice, a voice Jim was starting to hate.  Maximus creased his belly, “your precious baby.  You’re really starting to show captain.  You’re in your second trimester, right?  How time flies.  Pretty soon you’ll feel the little movements of life.  So precious.”  Maximus muttered, running his fingers over his bump.

Jim grabbed his wrist.  “Thank you.”

“With pleasure, did you know Dr.  McCoy is a fabulous cook.”  Maximus spoke heartily as he broke off Jim’s hold and disappeared down the hall.

Jim blinked once, calming his breath.  He was have to watch Maximus more carefully now before following.  Bones was in the kitchen.  He was wearing a blue apron similar in shade to his medical blues.  He was half engrossed in whatever was on the stove and the other half listening to whatever Joanna was saying as she kicked her feet forwards and backwards.

But most of all…

There was a smile on Bones’ face, a true smile.  A smile Jim wasn’t sure he had ever seen on his friend’s face…

And suddenly, Jim wasn’t alright.

That itch…

The thoughts…

The feeling erupted through him…

He stumbled to the door, fumbled with the door jam and his shoes.  As the door slammed behind him he thought he heard Bones call out a ‘Jim’.

He ran down the stairs and into the bright San Francisco sun light.

He found a willing alpha near a bridge he vaguely remembered passing in the past.  

The alpha took him long and hard.  He felt her knot expand and inflate against the walls of his hole.  Only then did thoughts of Bones, Joanna, and everything else start to disappear from his mind.

The everything else that he didn’t want to think about.

About how it felt…

_Right…_

And then he threw up…

**********

 

He returned to their apartment in the early hours of the morning.  It was still dark out.  All he wanted to do was curl up into a ball and sleep.

However when he pushed open the door to his apartment a pair of hazel eyes greeted him.  For a moment he thought it was Bones.  But they were smaller and they looked so angry.

The other flipped on the light switch.  It was Joanna.  She was in her nightgown.

_Oh fuck._

The anger left her eyes, to be replaced by sadness.  She looked older.  She sighed and got up.  Reflexively, Jim grabbed her wrist.  She looked down at his arm then up at him.

"Jo..."  He started before stopping.  He really didn't know what to say to the little girl.

She looked at him reproachfully.  "You and Daddy really are like Mama and Clay."

Jim dropped his hand.

Joanna sank into the couch.  She hugged her knees against her chest and sighed.  “I really thought you and Daddy weren’t like Mama and Clay.”  Once again Jim detected the hatred in the way she said the name ‘Clay’.

“I hated Daddy for a long time, for going away, for leaving me behind with Mama.”

Jim sank into the couch next to Joanna.

He wasn’t good with this stuff.  With feelings and such… he wasn’t good with kids.  He hadn’t been in a long time, not since…

He quickly chased that thought away.

This wasn’t the time to be chasing those nightmares.

“I blamed Daddy for leaving me with Mama and Clay.  I don’t even know why she stays with him.”  Joanna pulled a face.  “It ain’t like they are even faithful to each other.”

_You and Daddy really are like Mama and Clay._

Jim could see where this was going.  

_Fuck_ …

And…

_More fuck…_

“I stopped blaming Daddy.  Daddy got hurt too.  He tried to take me.  I know he did.”  Joanna sighed.  “So, when Miss Eldena said I could come and stay with you and Daddy for the summer, showed me how happy you guys were, said I would be getting a new baby brother or sister…”

Joanna turned her head.  Her eyes were big and red.  “I thought Daddy was happy.  You guys looked so happy together.  I thought I would finally get a baby brother or sister that wouldn’t suck.”

“Jo…”  The words died from Jim’s lips together.  He didn’t know what to say to her.  At that moment, he really, really wished Bones was here.  At that moment, he wished, he really wished he never agreed to any of this.

Because it wasn’t about him and his problems… and God, he had so many of those…

It wasn’t about being whatever the fuck the admiralty wanted anymore…

It was…

_God…_

Jim pushed back his bangs.

He was going to be responsible for once.  Something he hadn’t been for weeks, months and maybe...

Never...

Bones wasn’t here.  

He was.  

He had to choose.  And hopefully, hopefully Bones wouldn’t hate him for it.  Hate him more…  

Joanna was almost eleven.  It wasn’t like she was a little kid.  

Jim took a deep breath.

“Joanna, your dad and I, we aren’t… together.”

Joanna blinked.  She looked at him, then down at his bump, the bump that was becoming harder and harder to hide with each passing moment.  

“We’re just friends, best friends,” Jim clarified.  “Your dad was the best thing that ever happened to me.”  

“Still is.”  Jim amended.  

She crossed her arms.  An unconvinced look on her face, "you got a strange way of showing it," she bluntly stated.

Jim sighed.  "Your dad is a good man.  Better man than I'll ever be."

"You're a good man too, Captain Kirk."

Jim chuckled.

“But you aren’t… together?”  Joanna implored.  

“No, we aren’t.  Not like that,” Jim quickly added.

_Whatever the hell that meant._

Joanna just looked up at him as if he had grown an extra head.

Jim sighed.  He was starting to wish Bones was here.

“I don’t know how much your dad has told you.  I do know we never meant for it to come to this… ever.  You understand there are three types of humans, right?”

“Alpha, beta, and omega,” Joanna nodded, reciting out the words.

Jim nodded.  God, he couldn’t believe he was going to go there.  “Your dad is an alpha, and I’m an…”

“Omega,” Joanna nodded.  She pulled a face.  “I know how that works.”

Jim nodded.  Good… that made things easier.  “On our last mission, I got hurt… real hurt.  Your dad saved me, but it made my body go crazy.  I went into heat, real bad.  I went to your dad for help,” Jim trailed off.

Joanna nodded, encouraging him to go on.  She seemed to understand.  She was a smart little girl.

“And well…”  He motioned at his abdomen.  He cringed just looking about it.

“But how does… that… explain Miz Eldena and Mr. Maximus?  And pretending to be… together?”

“Right.”  The stupid part, it really was stupid in hindsight.  “They thought it would boost morale, raise recruiting numbers.  Make us a symbol of hope for the Federation.”

Joanna’s eyes widened.  “That’s really sad, Captain Kirk.”  

“Yeah…”

“And stupid.”

Jim laughed.  “It was… is.”

Joanna bit her lips.  "Then why you agree?"

"I had a reason."

"What was it?"

Jim sighed.  He ran his fingers through his disheveled hair.

"It's not a really good reason anymore."

Joanna blinked, before narrowing her eyes.  "So instead you're keeping a baby you don't want and pretending to be in a relationship with my daddy."

Jim flinched at the frankness of Joanna’s words.  However it was the truth.  "Yeah... I guess."

Joanna blinked.  She tilted her head.  "Then why did my dad agree?"

Jim blinked.  He hadn't been expecting that.

"I don't know.  I really don't know."


	11. Chapter 11

_“I don’t know.  I really don’t know.”_

Leonard felt his breath hitch.  Half of him wanted to be furious with Jim, that Jim had told Jo the truth.  The other half of him was furious with himself that it had been Jim who told Jo the truth.

He should have realized sooner that Jo would figure it out.  She was a smart little girl.  Leonard had always known that.  Just years and time, it was hard for Leonard to place the almost eleven year old with the almost six year old little girl he had been forced to leave behind all those years ago.

But hearing what Jim and Jo had just revealed to each other, it made Leonard’s decision easier.

Jo being here had half convinced him already.

It was inevitable.

He didn’t know why it had taken him so long to finally decide.

He backed away from door frame and padded back into the bedroom.  

It was a long while later before he heard Jim enter the bedroom.  He heard him shuffling around in the drawers before climbing into the bed.

 

**********

 

“Rise and shine!”

Leonard McCoy almost had an aneurysm.

He woke up to the sunny, far too happy voice belonging to one Maximus.  Eldena wasn’t far behind.  Jo was trailing behind them.  She looked sleepy and put off by it all.  She was still in her pajamas and furiously rubbing her eyes.  

He felt the shuffle of blankets and Jim’s low cursing before he sat up.  For someone who had gotten so little sleep, the chronometer was flashing the ungodly number nine, he didn’t have a single bag under his eyes, nor did he look as confused and put off by it all as Leonard felt.

He felt like he had literally just fallen asleep.  

“Where’s the fire?”

_Or not…_

Leonard couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

“There is no fire, Captain,” Maximus admonished.  He pulled Jo against his chest.  “Don’t you remember, Captain?”

“Maximus,” Eldena started.  She tapped her bright red, freshly polished nails against each other.  

“Sorry, sorry.” Maximus didn’t look sorry.  There was a large grin on his face.  

Leonard can’t understand how anyone could possibly be this happy.

He pulled Joanna closer to his chest.  She scowled.

_That’s his little girl._

“Where’s that pretty little smile?’ Maximus tapped her cheeks.

Joanna looked ready to bite him, and for once Leonard decided not to reprimand his daughter.  She was definitely as put off by all of this as Leonard was.

“Aww, don’t look so grumpy.  Today, you, me, us, the world…”

Eldena rolled her eyes.

It seemed even she couldn’t stand all of Maximus’ theatrics.

“Finds out if you’re going to have a baby brother or sister!”

_A boy or a girl…_

_The baby’s gender..._

He couldn't believe that he had forgotten.

He couldn't believe how many weeks had gone by.  

_Jim was at seventeen weeks…_

_Seventeen weeks…_

With Jocelyn, they had decided not to find out.

She was a traditionalist, and Leonard didn’t want to fight her about it.  He didn’t particularly care whether it was a boy or a girl as long as it was happy and healthy.

Of course, it made procuring items for the baby harder, and they ended up with a yellow nursery.

But this time…

Jim never mentioned it, and Leonard never talked about it.

In fact, there was little they did talk about anymore.

So he had forgotten.  He remembered seeing it in his memo awhile back when he first gotten the schedule.  

He slipped Jim a look.  He looked surprisingly… calm.  

Silent, but calm.

“Well, let’s let them get dressed.”

Maximus’ grin was wide as he led Jo out of the bedroom.  Jim had already slipped out of the bedroom and into the shower before Leonard could catch his breath.  

 _Jim_ was on the tip of his tongue as the door slide shut.

“Damn it,” he swore to no one in particular.

Jim refused to talk, to even look at him throughout breakfast.  Breakfast that Maximus and Eldena had brought with them.

Jo was curled up on the couch with a PADD in her hand and a bagel in the other.  

He tried to not think of a different time.  A time when Jo was younger, when he was younger.  

A time when he and Jim still talked.

He tried to listen as Eldena detailed out their schedule for the day.

That his and Jim’s ratings were dropping.  Whatever the fuck that meant…

_Ratings…_

This wasn’t a fucking holo soap no matter how much it looked like it was turning into.

“The public needs more, and this gender reveal will definitely do the trick.”

Leonard really didn’t feel like arguing.  His head felt like it was ready to explode.

_But how could a gender reveal boast ratings?_

 

XXXXXXXXX

 

They made it to the studio with barely enough time for makeup.

Eldena’s lips were pursed as she led Joanna to her seats.  

Maximus stayed with them as he directed his vision to the studio makeup artist.

Blue and gold…

A young woman, probably still in high school, came over in the middle to offer them baked goods and coffee.

As Jim reached for the coffee, Leonard felt his heart drop.  He kept himself from speaking out because lately all his conversations with Jim led to arguing and Jim running off.

As Jim was about to take a sip; however, Maximus smiled and took the cup away.  “Now, now captain.  No coffee.”  He took a sip from the cup before snapping his fingers.  “Can we get some tea?”

Leonard could see the annoyed look on Jim’s face as his beverage was replaced by tea.  Leonard made sure to also take the tea.

He drank tea only a handful of time, and most were Long Island Iced Teas.

They didn’t have any time to greet the host.  Not that Cordial Stanson needed any introduction.

Everyone in the Federation knew Cordial Stanson.  He was one of the newest and most famous talk show hosts.  'Today with Cordial' was watched by billions.

And he and Jim were going to be on his show.

The thought made Leonard’s stomach turn as they were herded towards the stage.  Even this far away he could hear the screams and chants for Cordial.  

He turned his head and as a result caught a glimpse of them from the reflection in the mirrors.

How wrong it looked.

He was definitely not winning any awards with his half smile.

While Jim, Jim was perfect.

But Leonard wasn’t an idiot.

The smile on Jim’s face might show one thing, but after all these years, he had learned to read Jim.  

He knew Jim was angry.

Since last night, he had been wondering why Jim agreed to all of this.  

He had been running in circles, and all the paths converged to one.  

Like a puppet, he took Jim’s hand.  It was first time in a long time that they had physical contact with each other.

And it felt right.

The rightness that Leonard knew didn’t actually exist.

Jim looked at him, down to their joined hands, then looked away.

Leonard hadn’t realized he had been holding his breath.

Now in such close proximity to Jim, he noticed that Jim’s bump was rounder, more prominent under the baby blue button down shirt he was wearing.

It was his child…

His baby that was growing inside of him.

That alpha urge…

That need to protect…

It intensified as they entered the stage to the screams and shouts.

It was sickeningly bright, hot, and the eyes…

The rows and rows of eyes that were looking at him…

At them…

Jim waved and smiled.

The perfect captain…

The poster boy…

They shook hands with Cordial near the couches.  Two couches, one for him and one for Jim.

“Welcome Captain Kirk, Doctor McCoy, the happy parents,” Cordial beamed.  He hopped around behind him, inserted him in the middle and posed as a thousand flashes went off.

God, it really did feel as fake as it looked on the holos.

When Cordial let them go, they were allowed to sit down.  Cordial returned to his chair.  He crossed his legs and smiled.  

“Doctor McCoy, would you like something to drink?”

“Water…”  He responded.  It was the first thing that jumped to his mind after a glass of ice cold whiskey, which he definitely couldn’t request for.

The ottoman before them opened revealing two bottles of water.  Jim gave a passing smile before reaching across the table for the bottles.  He passed one to Leonard before sitting his near his feet.

The whole time it was still there, that fake smile.

Jim's captain smile…

The one Jim only gave him during their ‘taboo’ days.

He had been seeing it more frequently lately.

He wanted to ask Jim what he was thinking.  How he was.  He wanted to talk about last night.  However, he didn’t say any of those things.  Instead he waved to Joanna.  She was in the front row.

She actually looked excited.  Her fingers were on her PADD.  She was typing a thousand words a minute.  Leonard didn’t have to guess what she was doing.

She looked up him once and waved.

It started with a generic montage of them.  The few baby pictures of Jim, it was more than Leonard had ever seen.

Now that he thought about it he hadn’t seen any pictures of young Jim.

His heart tightened when he realized they weren’t even pictures from family photo albums but instead they looked more like candid, secretive photos taken behind trees and bushes.

He could tell it was Jim from the child’s mannerism.  Even the baby fat that he outgrew and the awkwardness before he was used to his body, Leonard could tell it was Jim.

The studio was filled with ‘oo’s and ‘ahh’s.

It ended with Jim receiving his captain stripes.  With the shot of Jim that had ran throughout the holo news for weeks.  He and Spock were on either side of Jim.

The golden trio…

The triumvirate…

Then the questions started.

He might as well had been given whiskey instead of water.

Because he sure as hell felt drunk as he listened to Jim easily answer Cordial’s questions.  He even answered his questions for him.

Like he used to before they started this mess.

Then finally…

Finally after Leonard was sure Cordial had worked up the audience enough, he introduced Dr. Mark Andersen, one of Starfleet’s leading gynecologists.

Leonard had very little interaction with the other omega.  He had only spent a month of rounds in the maternity and paternity wards at Starfleet Medical.  It was a very small department where the patients were usually just omegas of high ranking officers.  

He was an elderly man, with whitening hair.

He shook Cordial’s hand, then Leonard’s, waved at the crowd before he went to Jim.

Leonard noticed he didn’t shake Jim’s hand.

He didn’t even acknowledged Jim as he collapsed Jim’s couch flat.

“Ready Dr. McCoy?” Andersen asked.  

He felt Jim’s fingers tighten around his hand.

He wondered if Jim had done so consciously.  

He wasn’t looking at him.  His eyes were firmly boring into the ceiling.  

He didn’t even flinch when Andersen pushed up his shirt.  

Leonard found himself staring…

Staring at the bump…

It wasn’t as big as it should be.  

In fact, most times Jim barely looked pregnant when he was wearing his uniform.  There was only a small bulge.

His doctor mode wanted to give Jim a checkup.  The alpha side of him was concerned.

_Was Jim even getting prenatal check ups?_

_Was he even taking care of himself?_

He had been pulled from being Jim’s primary physician after his failed abortion attempt on grounds of ethics.

Because they were involved.

He realized he hadn’t even been thinking about Jim’s health…

About Jim…

About much of anything…

What had he been doing?

Jim was… is his friend… his best friend.

He had pushed him away…

He had been furious…

Now he couldn’t even figure out why…

Why did he let this canyon build between them?

Why was he so angry?

He was a little surprised when instead of a tricorder they actually pushed out a fucking ultrasound machine.

He didn’t even know Starfleet had one of those laying around.

He watched as Andersen covered Jim’s belly with the gel before picking up the wand.

“Ready?”

He was surprised Jim actually nodded his head.

The silence in the room was palpable as Andersen placed the wand over Jim’s abdomen.  

He felt his breath catch as the image of…

_Fuck…_

His child…

His and Jim’s child…

Appeared on the holo-screen…

A little perfect hand…

With five tiny fingers…

A tiny nose…

Andersen moved the wand further down…

Andersen’s smile widened.

“Well Doctor?”  Cordial broke the silence.  “Do you have news for the happy couple?”

“A boy.”

Leonard didn't hear the cheers and the screams coming from the studio crowd.

He could only hear his own heart thumping away.

_A boy…_

_A son…_

_His and Jim’s son..._

And that was all Leonard needed to solidify the decision he had been putting off making.  

He looked at Joanna sitting in the front row.  All the years he had lost with her.  All the years he was going to continue to lose.

This would be for the best…

 

**********

Jim’s Interlude

**********

 

The apartment was dark when Jim returned.  

It was dark and silent…

The light from the city outside cascaded into the apartment.

He didn’t bother to turn on the lights as he picked up an apple from the fruit basket.  He slid onto the couch…

He bit into the apple.  The only sound was the pitter patter of the angry raindrops that fell against the glass window.

A glowing PADD caught his eye.  It was buried beneath a pile of other PADDs.  Any other day he would have left it like that.

But it was too bright in this dark room.  

It bothered him.

He pushed aside the other PADDs and picked up the offending PADD.  It was one of Bones’.  

As he reached to turn it off, the words caught his eyes.  He normally never read Bones’ PADDs.

His eyes flickered over the words.

His breath caught.

He felt like his heart had stopped.

The PADD fell with a loud thump back onto the coffee table.

He ran out of the apartment, out into the pouring, thundering San Francisco night.

He sank against the side of a building.  The rain drenched him.  It made the sides of his shirt cling to his chest, to his abdomen…

Bones was going to leave him…

He was going to lose Bones…

He sank to his knees.

What Spock had warned him about…

The inevitable…

The reason he didn’t make connections…

Why he never wanted any of this…

Because they never stay…

Not even Bones...

He was losing Bones…

_Bones…_

_Bones…_

His best friend…

The reason he was where he was today.

His heart raced.

He felt his lungs seize up.

_Bones…_

_Bones…_

_Bones…_

He couldn’t…

He couldn’t lose Bones.

He didn’t want to.

He gasped.  

He gasped again.  

His eyes watered.

As he opened his mouth, he felt it.  

He looked down, startled.  

His eyes widened.

Again he felt it…

The tiny flutter from his abdomen.


	12. Chapter 12

Leonard McCoy learned the next morning how a gender reveal could boast ratings.

However later he would wish that he had read the holo news that morning before he took the call.

He had taken a long shift at Starfleet Medical, and Jo was spending the night at a friend’s house.  Jim… Jim hadn’t come back again.  Then again Leonard hadn’t expect him to.

So his brain was only half functioning when he answered the call.

“Leonard Horatio McCoy.”

There was only one person in the world who calls him _that_ with that tone of voice anymore.

“Gramma,” Leonard pulled a smile.

“Don’t Gramma me, young man.  I know your parents raised you better than _that_.”

Elisabeth McCoy was a small, petite woman, a classic definition of a Southern lady.  She had charm, class and grace.

However she was also scary when she was angry.  Since his father’s death, Leonard didn’t like to admit, but he had been avoiding his grandparents.

She forgave him for he had done, but that didn’t mean Leonard McCoy forgave himself.

“Sorry, ma’am.”  Leonard muttered.  He felt like a little boy again.

“Lenny.”  His gramma sighed.  “I’m not here for trouble, just for warm wishes.”

“Warm wishes?”

_That did not sound good._

“When were you going to tell your gramma about her new great-granbaby?”  

Leonard felt his stomach drop under him when his gramma held up the Georgia Sun.  There in the front and center of the headlines was his son’s ultrasound, with the words ‘Baby George’ in big bold letters.

“George is a lovely name, after his father right?  George David has a nice ring, no?”

‘Baby George’

Leonard opened and closed his mouth.

“Rings, that does remind me.”

It took all his willpower to not say anything at that moment

“You’re a southern boy and doctor, Leonard Horatio McCoy.  When you going to do it proper? You know that births for an unbounded omega are longer and harder.”

He does know that.

And well…

He similarly knows Jim is not going to bond with him.

There was one thing he knows for certain about Jim Kirk, and that was he was not going to be bonded to another human being.

It was permanent.

It was forever.

But his gramma looked so hopeful…

Leonard didn’t have the heart to take that away from her too.

“When the time is right.”

His gramma smiled widened.

“That’s my Lenny.  Now where is my great-granddaughter and your lovely captain, Lenny?”

Just as he was about to answer, the door opened.  Before he had a chance to see who it was, he heard a loud squeal.

“Granmama!”

Jo kicked off her shoes and ran to him.  Someone had tied her hair into a French braid.  

“Jobaby,” his mama smiled.  “Are you enjoying San Francisco?”

Jo nodded.

“I made new friends.  And Jim got me a new PADD.”  Jo thrust out what looked like a very new, and very expensive PADD.

He whipped his head around to the other noise in the room.  Of Jim, who was taking his shoes off.

“That’s real nice dear.  But you shouldn’t be calling your new mama Jim, dear.  Right Lenny?”  

Elisabeth was also a sneaky woman.  

Her eyes twinkled.

Jo whipped her head around; her eyes looked at him brightly.  Like she was daring him.

“Ms. McCoy,” Jim broke the tension.  He slid up behind him.  He was so close that Leonard could smell him, smell his own scent mixing with the familiarity that was Jim’s scent. “We’ve never formally met.  Jim Kirk, ma’am.”

His gramma smiled.

“Elisabeth is fine Captain Kirk.  Although calling me gramma is fine too..”

Leonard wanted to groan.

“Then please call me Jim.”  Jim smiled.  He straightened up.

“You look a little small, are you getting enough to eat?”  She narrowed her eyes.

“Yes ma’am.”  Jim smiled.  “Little bugger is getting big and strong.  His kicks are as strong as a horse.”

_Jim had felt the baby kick._

It tugged at him.  It bothered him.

He had been trying to give Jim his space.  He hadn’t realized in the process how much he was missing.

Not just of his child’s growth, but Jim too…

He watched as Jim and Jo talked with his gramma, and for a second, a second where he lost himself, he let himself feel… let himself realize how right _this_ felt.

It ended when Jo slipped away saying she wanted to put her things away.  She gave him a look, a look that reminded him of Jocelyn.

And reality crashed back at him.

Of what he had to discuss with Jim…

He had to talk to him.

He was left with his gramma, whose smile couldn’t be brighter.

“He’s a keeper, Lenny.  Not like that horrible Jocelyn, you know she’s pregnant again.  Looks like she’s carrying a litter this time.”

It was not a secret that Elisabeth never liked Jocelyn.  Leonard had known _that_ his whole life.  

Not even when they were still children; she had been the only one not excited when they got married.  She never liked the fact they had done a marriage ceremony instead of a traditional bonding ceremony.

And of course, when Leonard found her with Clay, that hadn’t helped matters.

“Nobody is asking me.  But I doubt they are all from the same father.”

“Gramma.”

He wasn’t going to defend his ex-wife, but she was the mother of his daughter.  “What Jocelyn and Clay does isn’t my business.”

“You’re too good, Lenny.  You take care; Gramma loves you.”

“Love you too, gramma.”  

He sighed as he disconnected.  He had a horrible headache and, well, a fire to put out.  

_Jim and Jo…_

He could hear the shower running, so he decided to tackle Jo first.  He knocked on her door.

“Come in.”  Jo called.

Leonard found her curled up in her bed with her PADD, the one Jim bought for her.

“Can we talk?”

“Sure.”  She set her PADD down and sat up.

“Nice PADD.”  He tapped it.

“Yeah.  Jim got it for me.

Leonard sighed.

He had to remind himself she was almost a teenager, not the little girl with the missing front teeth that he used to tuck into bed and who believed in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus.

He decided to start simple.

“What you think of Jim?”

Jo wiggled her nose.  “Don’t know.  He seems nice, I guess.”  She kicked her feet.  “Confused but nice?”

“Oh?”  He raised an eyebrow.

“Like you Daddy.”

“Why are you and Jim so angry with each other?”

Leonard sighed.

He could say what parents had been saying to their kids for a thousand years.  The ‘you’re too young to understand’ but looking at Jo, with those big hazel eyes, he couldn’t.  He instead pulled her into a hug.

“I’m not.”

Jo pulled away and looked at him.

“I’m not angry with him.  I’m angry with myself.”

“Why?”

“Because I made a mistake, a big mistake, and I hurt my best friend.”

“So my baby brother is a mistake?”

“No.  No!  He’s a blessing, a miracle.”

“Jim doesn’t see it like that.”

“Jim has a lot of hurt.”

“Because of his daddy?  Because of George?”

“And other things.”  Leonard sighed.  “But I’m going to fix it, sweetheart.”

“Good.”  Jo smiled,  She picked up the PADD.  “Do you think Jim will let me read to the baby?  It says the baby can start to hear now.”

“Is that right?”

“Yep.  Mama doesn’t let me.”  She pulls a face.  

“Let me talk to Jim.”

“Okay.”

Jo smiled.

“Love you daddy.”

“Love you too, squirt.”  He stood up.  He watched as Jo went back to her PADD.  When he returned to the living room, he found Jim on the couch.  He had changed into a new shirt.   His hair was combed.  As he took a deep breath to talk to Jim, he heard noises coming from the kitchen.

He blinked as Eldena and Maximus stepped out.  There were big smiles on their faces.

Maximus was holding the holo news.

“Baby George is a hit.”

Leonard looked at Jim.  He didn't say anything about it.

“Endorsements are coming in left and right.  The kid will never want for anything.  We got to ride this wave.  So it’s shopping time!”

Maximus clapped his hands excitedly.

And that was how Leonard found himself a hour later with Jo and Jim buying a crib while a film crew trailed behind.  Leonard could tell Jim could not look further from excited.

Leonard wouldn’t lie.  He had never bought a crib before.  With Jo, Jocelyn had gone with her mother while Leonard had been on call.  He came home and found the nursery decorated white and pink.

The store owner was a friendly pair.  They looked ecstatic as they described each crib in great detail to them.

The high end ones had sensors, white noise and were even temperature controlled.

Some even had little PADDs built in to allow parents to play enrichment videos for the baby.

Leonard had always thought a crib was just a crib.

Then there was bedding, changing tables, mobiles, swings…

His mind felt like it was going to explode.

But somehow they still managed to return to the apartment with bags of diapers, clothes with little stars, rockets, green aliens and planets on them, and a gigantic giraffe that took forever to fit through the door.  It had been the only thing Jim wanted.

Leonard didn’t understand that one.

They went to sleep without having _that_ conversation.  Jim looked exhausted.

Leonard wondered if the universe was against them.  

The next morning Jim had disappeared, and Leonard found himself on call.

 

**********

 

It would be the weekend before he saw Jim again.

And Eldena and Maximus...

They didn’t look as excited this time.

In fact, Eldena had her lips pursed, and Maximus was gripping a PADD.

It looked like someone or something had died.

“What’s wrong.”

Maximus seemed to positively glare at Jim before thrusting the PADD at Leonard.

There in the front and center was a picture of Jim being fucked against a wall with the headline ‘Kirk and McCoy frauds?’

“The Admirals are suing under grounds of libel.”  Eldena explained.  She looked just as annoyed as Maximus.  “They will quell the fires.”

Her eyes flickered.

“Your ratings have dropped.”  Maximus looked like that was all he cared about.

Leonard clenched his fist.

“So they have given us new orders.  A change of scenario...”

Leonard felt his heart drop.

He could guess where this was going, and he only needed one guess.

“The public loves Captain Kirk.”

_Fuck._

“We’re going to space.”

Leonard thought he had imagined it, but for a second he swore he saw a genuine smile appear on Jim’s face.

“We’re going to space, Jo.”

He had to look happy when Jo squealed.

He didn’t know when his daughter had wandered in.


	13. Chapter 13

Jim’s head was reeling.  He found himself walking along the wharf.  The waves crashed into the pier.

They were in for a storm.  Jim could already see the storm clouds blowing in from the sea.  In the distance there were a streaks of lightning.

He had managed to escape after the show.  

It had been too real.

It made everything too real.

And then there was Bones’ face, the way his eyes lit up when he saw it.  He had never seen Bones so happy or so young.

Jim stopped walking.

It made his sick.  

His stomach churned.  He hurried to the closest trash can and threw up his breakfast.  

He coughed.  

He felt the acid coursing through his esophagus and then his throat.  It burned the whole way up.

_God._

“Sir, are you okay?”

Jim’s stomach churned, and he threw up again.  He felt the warm hand of another on his arm.

“Here sir.”  He blinked as the hand gave him a bottle of water.  Once his stomach settled, he rinsed his mouth out with the water before drinking some of it.

 When Jim looked up, he found an middle aged woman in her late forties, early fifties looking at him.  There was a sympathetic smile on her face.

He nodded.  “Thank you, ma’am.”

She gasped when she looked at him.

“Captain Kirk!”  She immediately covered her mouth when she realized her outcry caused the surrounding people to turn to look at them.

Jim smiled pleasantly.

“It’s okay ma’am.”

She seemed to positively beam. She immediately rumbled inside her purse and pulled out a PADD.

Jim recognized what it was immediately.  She wasn’t the first, and he knew she would not the last as the crowd was already converging towards them.

“Could you?  Please?  My son, my son is a fan.  He loves you, says he wants to be a captain just like you.”

Jim smiled.  

“Sure.”

He took the offered PADD and stylus.  “What’s his name?”

“Linus.”

Jim smiled and started his message.  He liked writing little messages along with his signature.

“You give hope to us omegas, Captain.”

Jim stilled.

“My older boy decided to start a company.”  She continued.  “And watching you and the doctor, it gives us hope for a better tomorrow.  To know you think it’s safe to start a family after all that has happened.”

Jim signed his name.

He bit his lip.

_There are people that actually believe._

He had never thought of it like _that_.

If the world was safe or not…

Hell, he had been born in the midst of death and destruction.  He had been destructive his whole life.

He just lived…

He fought day in and day out with life knowing that it hated him.  He forged his own destiny.

He held his tongue and simply hummed.  When he finished, Jim smiled and handed the PADD back.

She squeaked, thanked him again before disappearing from the crowd that had gathered.

He accepted more PADDs and received similar sentiments from the crowd that had gathered.

The people Nyes had said this was all for.

His stomach turned with each additional sentiment that he received.  Well wishes for him and Bones and…

_Bones…._

He was going to lose Bones.

The PADD he had found.

It had been incomplete but Jim had gotten the message.  It was inevitable because of the…

_The thing…_

_The thing…_

The parasite growing inside of him.

He grimaced as it moved again.

Moved to announce its presence…

That it was there…

It was there…

It was going to steal Bones away.

He felt his stomach churn again.  He smiled and handed the PADD back to its owner.  

“Sorry, I got to go.”

He heard the groans, but they parted, like the Nile to Moses.  He managed to round the corner before throwing up again.

The thing moved again.

He clenched his fist as he felt his stomach acids roar up.

A different time he would stumbled into a bar and asked for the strongest drink available to drown it all out.  

But his face was too well known and even the shadiest bar would refuse to serve him.  He looked down his abdomen.  Although it was barely that noticeable especially when he worn his uniform, it felt massive, like a weight that he couldn’t shed.  

That he couldn’t get rid of.

The reason that Bones was leaving him.

He had gotten here because of Bones…

To protect Bones…

And in the end he was losing him.

He had been losing him.

And thing moved again, and Jim felt his stomach churn again.

He hated it.

The thing inside of him…

Leeching off of him…

Stealing away Bones…

He had to keep him, but for once Jim had no idea how to.

He didn’t want to admit it, but he needed help.

Not Spock…

Not Uhura…

Not someone in Starfleet or his crew…

A face appeared in his mind.

Someone who understood him.

He made it back to headquarters.  He managed to avoid almost everyone.

Even now humanity was programmed to avoid trouble and confrontation.

He made it to his office and found himself dialing a number he had never called.

When the face of a man who looked like him and talked like him appeared on the screen, Jim still didn’t know if he had done the right thing.

“Jim?”

“Sam.”

The man’s face broke into a wide grin.  “Hey little brother.”

“Hey.”

_George Samuel Kirk…_

His older brother…

Jim had been angry when Sam left him all those years ago.  He had been angry when his brother left him with Frank.

However after Deneva, after he almost losing him again, the anger had left.  Over messages that took too long to reach, Jim and Sam had slowly begun to reforge their bond.  After a lot of hurt and anger, Jim had started down the path of forgiveness.

“Congra…”  The words died from Sam’s lips.

This was why he had gone to Sam and not Spock, or Uhura or anyone else in his crew.

Because Sam, Sam despite all the years, he could read Jim just as well.  Because he could tell Jim what he needed without feeling like they were betraying Bones.

“I need your advice.”

“Of course little brother.”

“It’s Bones.  He’s leaving me.”

Sam’s eyes darkened.  “Damn alpha.  You want me to come punch him?  I could take him.”

Jim couldn’t help but laugh.

It felt good to laugh.  He hadn’t laughed in a long time.  

“No Sam.  I don’t need you to punch him.  If I needed _that_ I could do it myself.”

“Of course little brother.  So what you need?”

“Advice on how to keep him.”

He saw Sam’s eyes widen.  “Well damn.  Is little Jimmy…”

“If you finish that sentence I’m hanging up.”

“Sorry, sorry.  Well, you thought of talking to him?  Asking why?”

Jim pulled a face.

“Sam…”

“Well," Sam scratched his graying beard.  "He has another kid right?  Jo…”

“Joanna,” Jim supplied.

“Right.”

“Well you could always try winning her over.  Get her something nice.  Forge some bonds Jimmy.  Or you could just talk to him, like a sensible person.”

“Thanks Sam.”

“Any time Jim.”


	14. Chapter 14

He was the youngest captain in Starfleet history but when it came to real talk, real meaningful talk Jim knew he was horrible at it.

He could sweet talk any diplomat.  

Hell, at this point he rather mediate peace with the Klingons than _talk_ to Bones.

Talking about him, them, their issues made him feel exposed and could open too many bottles and chests that he rather keep firmly closed.

Hence why he took Sam's other advice.

He hadn’t spent much time with kids.  

Kids reminded him…

But he knew kids liked presents.

And he knew Jo loved her PADD.  She was constantly on it.  She spent more time with it living in the cyber world than in the real world.

Then again Jim wasn’t sure he could blame her. In fact, it did bother him that he was constantly seeing himself in _her._

He had deduced from their limited conversations that Jocelyn basically ignored her.  The child born from a previous, failed marriage.  

And unlike his own mother, Jocelyn created a new family one that obviously didn’t include Joanna.

And then there was Bones, who was busy, had forged a new life without her, and then intertwined with time and distance they had inevitably drifted them apart.

And…

Jim didn’t want to think about _that_ anymore.

So instead, Jim found himself in San Francisco’s high tech district.  It was located in a glitzy and affluent part of San Francisco.  It was full of tech geeks and ambitious cadets and college students looking for the next greatest upgrades to their PADDs.

Jim never saw the appeal in buying gadgets for his PADD especially _now_.  But then again, he had a whole starship to play with, which could do more than even the best PADD upgrade could.

An hour later he left the store with a top of the line PADD.  It had cost him two months worth of credits.

But Jo’s squeal and the smile on her face when he gave it to her the next morning made it worth it.

 

*************

 

Tiny clothes…

Fuzzy blue blankets…

And rows and rows of cribs…

It was stifling.

It made him sick.

Sick that this was really happening.  That _this_ parasite was taking over more and more of his life than just his body.

That it was stealing away Bones.

That he had to actually buy things for it.

That he had to keep it…

He couldn’t lie.

He had been avoiding _that_ thought like a plague.

He found his only conciliation in all of this was that Bones looked equally miserable and lost in it all.

He tried to smile as the ever excited store owners tried to sell them the latest, greatest crib.

Not that he knew anything about cribs.

He could order parts for his ship.  He could talk for hours with Chekov on physics.

But cribs…

He always thought they were just little jail cells to keep babies inside.

They were there.

They existed like babies.

And definitely, one hundred percent nothing to do with him.

And just when he thought his brain had officially dribbled away, the store owner had to ask.  Had to speak to him in that kind voice with that smile that Jim didn’t understand how could never fade even around two human beings who looked completely lost and pretending to not be uninterested.

It was amazing that anyone the Federation still bought into it.  

The power of film editing…

It was a dangerous thing.

“We always ask our mothers if there is something they would like to buy for their little one.”

_Mother…_

And of course Eldena and Maximus pounced on it.

And all the eyes, even Bones’ for a fraction of a second landed on him.

“That,” Jim pointed to the stuffed animal in the corner of the baby store.  He watched with satisfaction at the change in emotion exhibited by Maximus, Eldena, and the store owners.  He took note of Bones and his eyebrow raise.

“The giraffe, Captain?” the owner chirped out hesitantly.

“Yes.”

He saw her face fall for a moment.  He wondered for a moment if she had some attachment to the toy.  

As they walked closer to it, Jim can tell that couldn’t be the case.  Unlike the other items in this store, this toy had clearly been here for a long time.  There was even a faint layer of dust covering its fur.  

Jim didn’t doubt that unlike the other toys and merchandise, this was clearly not an intentional product.  Maybe some clerk or attendant had accidentally ordered it over the years.

Which became forgotten or deemed not sell-able.

He watched as she hastily drew out a towel and tried to cover up the dust that coated its fur.  

He did feel bad.

But he was actually being genuinely sincere  when he had answered.  If he was actually expected to buy something, he wanted to actually like it.

And…

He had always liked giraffes.

As much as most kids wouldn’t say they disliked giraffes, it also was most likely not the first animal they would name when asked ‘what’s your favorite wild animal’.

Often than not, the animal named would be elephants, lions, tigers, or some other big fierce animal.

But Jim…

He always said giraffe.

Even though he knew it wasn’t true.

He liked the story of how the reason they had long necks was because they were trying to get as far off terra firma as possible.  As a result, Jim had always felt a kind of affinity for them.

That their need for space was so great they grew long necks.

Not that he was going to tell anyone about _that_.

“Of course,” the shop owner smiled pleasantly at them.

 “Nothing but the biggest and best for little George.

”That name again…

If he wanted kids, which he didn’t, there was no way he was going to name it George.

Being a Kirk was bad enough.

Being a George Kirk was worse.

 

*************

 

Jim was not sure what his tactics instructor would think of him now.

He called it strategic retreat.

But from the way Uhura was giving him the death glare, he could tell she didn’t approve either.

They had agreed to meet for tea.

Not that Jim particularly liked tea.  He didn’t particularly dislike it either.  He just found coffee to be a superior source of caffeine.

Although he did find peppermint tea to do wonders for his sickness.

Uhura was already there when he arrived.  In a white blouse and long blue jeans, he vaguely wondered if this was the first time he had seen her in jeans.

Even on away missions that required blending in with the natives, Uhura wore a dress or a skirt.

“Up here captain.”

She sounded exactly like she did all those years ago, in that bar in Riverside.  With that same tone of voice as when she asked if he had sex with the farm animals.

Which he hadn’t and hasn’t…

Although he did have plenty of sex with the farmhands, farmers’ daughters and sons between the hay stacks and in the barn.

Jim found it comforting as he slipped into the chair across from her.  He smiled as Uhura poured him a cup of tea.

It had a strong fruity fragrance that reminded him of springtime.

“It’s been awhile, captain.”

“Jim,” he corrected, easily.  It was less awkward that way.  He had grown accustomed to it on the Enterprise when they had roles and duties, but here on Earth, it was just strange.  Especially now, when he could tell he was about to get an earful from her.

She looked at him pointedly, with that ‘you got to be kidding me’ look.

He could already tell where she was going with _this_ , and he definitely didn't want to go _there_.

He wouldn’t admit it, but he had been avoiding his crew since it had all gone to hell.  

He had received hundreds of congratulatory messages when the news first broke out.  Some sounded indignant that they found out through the news instead of from Jim himself.  But most just wished him and Bones well.   

She took a sip of her tea.  Her face softened as she spoke the next words.  “How you doing?”

He could say fine, that everything was amazing.  

But Uhura had known him as long as Bones had.  He hadn’t been as close with her as he was with Bones.  However they had a history, a long history, so she could easily call his bullshit.  And that was exactly what she would say if he did say _that_.

“Surviving.”

Uhura sighed.

“You aren’t alone in this Jim.  You got us.  You got Leonard.”

He felt like he was going to explode.

He didn’t have Bones.  He hadn’t really since that night that started it all.

But he didn’t say _that_.

“We’re behind you, Jim.  You and Leonard, no matter what happens.  Cause we’re family.”

 

*************

 

“Twice in a week.  I’m surprised, Jimmy.  People are going to start thinking we actually have a normal relationship, Jimmy.”

Jim rolled his eyes.

He almost felt bad.

That technically he could do better especially now that his ship was still out of commission.

He could have taken a ship out and visited his brother and his small family.  

_Hell…_

Maybe a different Jim would have.  Maybe a Jim who wasn’t still angry.

Because he still was.

Sam had been the one who left.

Sam had been the one who left him with Frank.

Who caused him to…

He pushed those thoughts from his mind.

“It didn’t work.”

“What you talking about?”

“Bribing Jo.  Sweet talking his grandmother who thinks we should bond by the way.”

“That’s…”

“Sam…” Jim’s eyes darkened considerably.  Because that was one thing he was never going to do.

_Bond…_

Soul bond with another…

Sam didn’t understand being a beta.  He sometimes wished he had been born a beta.  It was simpler, less messy.  Betas couldn’t soul bond.

“It’ll keep him around, permanently.”

While that was true, even Starfleet wasn’t cruel enough to separate a bonded pair.  It was why his mom had been on the Kelvin in her state to begin with.

It was also why only a handful of bonded alphas were captains of star ships.  

Most didn't form bonds until they were promoted to commodore.  Then like they were missing years of their life would acquire a harem of omegas.  

“No.”

“Well since you refuse to talk.”  Sam started again.  He paused for a moment.  “He likes space right?”

That statement floored Jim for a second.

He loves space, the adventure, the excitement, everything…

His ship is his pride and joy.

Bones on the other hand...

Sam didn’t let him respond.

“Why don’t you take him away from the environment.  It’s clear to anyone with half a brain he doesn’t like the attention.  Take him to space...”

“Space…”

 

*************

 

“Gabriel, editor in chief of The Sun speaking.  Who is this?”

Jim took a deep breath.  

“I have a scoop for you.  Tonight, Golden Gate Park near the memorial, send your best photographer.”

It would make the biggest headlines, and right now that was what Jim needed.

“Who is this?”

Jim heard the scratching of a stylus to a PADD, so he knew Gabriel was writing it down.  He knew how the media worked.  They were like savage wolves.  They never let a lead go no matter the source.

They had a whole building full of minions to do the work.

“It’ll be worth it.”  

He cut the connection before the other could ask anymore questions.

He made the short trek back to the apartment.  It was dark and empty just like how he planned it.

Bones and Jo weren’t back yet.

Jo was with a friend, and Bones was taking late shifts again.

Which was fine with Jim.

Not talking to Bones at this point was better.  Not talking meant Bones couldn’t resign before Jim could do something about _it_.

Because if Jim knew anything about Bones, he knew he wasn’t going to resign through a comm message.

He took a long shower and sprayed himself with cologne.

On the way out, he grabbed his leather jacket.  It had taken a while to get it cleaned after being waterlogged _that_ night.  Finding a holo taxi didn’t take long.  He made it to Golden Gate Park with over thirty minutes to spare. 

He had chosen the park because it was one of the best spots to find an alpha.  They liked to plow these grounds looking for an easy lay with an omega in heat.

It acted like an old hunting ground between the thick tree lines.  It was one of the few places left in the city that wasn’t covered in concrete.

Only tonight Jim was the one doing the hunting.

Like always, the park was filled with alphas.  

The lazy, smug and arrogant alphas...

Jim knew to tread carefully.

He usually avoided the park at dark.  He only came when he was particularly angry.  When his hatred for the world was so great, and his usual places weren’t enough.

He heard the stories.

Omegas were known to get raped and sometimes even kidnapped here.  

There were humans and even other races that sought out omegas.  Some for breeding and other as slaves because of their known pliant and servitude natures.

Most of all, nobody was going to launch a rescue mission for a missing omega, especially an unbonded omega.

However Jim had been acting as a beta all his life.  

He kept his distance as he strolled through the park.  He held his head at an agreeable height as he observed the alphas lurking about.   Some were already preoccupied with omegas they had found.

He walked past most of them.

Despite popular belief, Jim was wary of contracting venereal diseases.  He hated doctors, which was ironic since his best friend was Bones, so he made sure to keep himself healthy.  He had seen the omegas in Riverside, who had contracted them.  He saw the way they suffered. Most alphas stayed away from them like they had the Black Plague.  Of course the same couldn’t be said about alphas with venereal diseases.

So he bypassed the ones that looked like they were high.  The ones that catcalled to him, offering take him as their bitch.

Till he made it closer to the monument, there the amount of alphas were fewer.  

The prime alphas…

_Bingo_

He found the one.

Tall…

Dark of a cafe late complexion…

And a head full of hair…

Long, curly hair that was tied into a neat little ponytail.  

He had muscles…

Muscles that were bulging out of his dark shirt with some band logo that he swore he saw Jo listening to.  

He had tattoos running down the lengths of his arms, like sleeves.  He was sporting a nose and eyebrow ring that glistened in the moonlight.

He would do.

Jim walked forward.  That Kirk smile on his face…

“Ain’t taking another alpha’s property.”  

He had barely crossed half the distance when the alpha barked out.

_Damn it_

He had accounted for _that…_

He knew he was starting to smell more and more like Bones…

He had just thought his shower and cologne would take care of _it…_

“Ain’t no alpha’s property,” Jim rebutted.  

He twisted his shoulder to expose his left collarbone.  The location where most bond marks were placed.

The alpha relaxed.  

He stood up a little straighter before walking forward.

“Then who’s pups you carrying?  I can smell his stench all the way from here.”

“It was just a lay.”  Jim eased out.  He stepped forward to meet him halfway.  “We all have accidents.”

“I don’t want trouble.”

Jim tapped his muscles.  That easy smile on his face.  “You look like you can handle it.”  He wagged his eyebrows.  “What do say you?”

He stepped forward and pressed his lips to the alpha’s left ear.  “Don’t you think you have it in you? Maybe you could even pop me?”  Jim wet his lips.  

He could smell the alpha’s pheromones surge outwards.

_Hook, line and sinker…_

Alphas were so predictable.

He almost lost his footing when the alpha grabbed him.  

He push him against the monument.  It was cold to the touch as the alpha pulled down his pants.  

His hands were hard and covered calluses.

His cock was large and long.

He had definitely been gifted.

And maybe a different time and place, he would have enjoyed.

But for some reason, at that moment he couldn’t.  He never felt more numb, less excited and more like he was doing it out of obligation than as the alpha thrust inside of him.

Unaware of it all...

And even as he saw the flash go off in the distance, only one thought filled his mind.

One face came to mind.

One name...

_Bones..._


	15. Chapter 15

Leonard stared at the image.  The image of Jim being fucked by another alpha.  He knew this side of Jim existed.  

He always did.

He knew Jim wasn’t a saint.  That he liked to get his high.

It was why he had swore to never do it with Jim for years. He didn’t want to be another notch on Jim’s bed post.  

He knew logically, realistically, everything he knew about Jim and their present circumstances.  That it meant nothing to Jim that he was carrying his son, his pup.

They weren’t bonded.

Hell, they weren’t even in a relationship.  Actually, presently, they were barely much of anything.

Leonard wasn’t even sure he could call Jim his friend at the moment or for a long time now.  They hadn’t really talked in months.  And that thought nagged that the back of Leonard’s mind.

Because in truth, their friendship hadn’t really been that great since Jim made captain.

Since Spock happened…

It been fine at first.  In the beginning, then shift schedule, the fact that Leonard was at Medical and Jim was on the bridge.  It was like they just drifted apart.

Like Jim was finally tired of him, found a better toy...

Leonard tried to push that bitter thought to the back of his mind.

It was something he hated to admit about but had always been there.  That fear that Jim would grow tired of him.

But it was still there…

No matter what he tried to tell himself.

Because even though they had been friends for twice as long as Jim even knew Spock and half of that not even friends, when it mattered…

When Jim had died in that warp core, it hadn’t been Bones that he wanted but Spock.   Hell, it seemed he mattered so little in Jim’s life that he only found out Jim was dead when they brought his body in a fucking body bag to Medical.

And he only been notified then because he was CMO.

And then even thought he had been the one to bring Jim back and it was he who almost lost his license because of it, Jim had thanked Spock and not him.  In fact, most of the time Jim had been in the hospital recovering, he had been with Spock.

And then there was that flicker of a thought, no matter how ridiculous it was but still existed that if Spock were an alpha, that Jim would have asked Spock for help...

But still that primal, biological part of him…

The alpha part of him was angry, territorial, and he hated himself for it.  He hated himself when he got like this.

He took another swing from his bottle.  

The numbness of it all…

It dulled his senses.

_Self-medication..._

He looked at the photo once more before throwing it on his desk.He reached for his bottle again at the same time as a knock sounded at the door. He quickly dropped the bottle and PADD into a drawer, nudged it shut with his knee before calling out "come in.”

Eldena stepped inside, in her fancy, colorful hair.  There was a reproachful look on her face.  

Leonard didn’t blame her.

In fact he pitied her at times when she wasn't making his life more difficult, which was most times but still.  Leonard knew didn't like this situation anymore than he did.

That it was her job.  That she was forced to make up a story that was built upon lies and half truths.  She and Maximus were forced to create an illusion about his and Jim’s nonexistent relationship.  

_The hope of the future…_

_Improve morale in the Federation…_

Whatever the fuck _that_ meant.

Because if that wasn’t the biggest bag of crap in this universe, then Leonard didn’t know what was.

Because it was…

Because as charming as Jim could act and be, Leonard knew Jim was equally as broken.  Time and too many shared bottles of whiskey between them later, Leonard knew about many of Jim’s skeletons.

They had been the two broken, out of place men on that shuttle…

They had bonded over their hatred of the universe.

Looking back, it probably wasn’t a good foundation for a healthy relationship, not that there was anything healthy about their relationship to begin with.

It was clear from the lines that even her make up couldn't cover that this was equally affecting her.  That Jim's actions was something else she had to deal with.

“Dr. McCoy.”

“Eldena.”

“The admiralty has approved Joanna’s stay aboard the starship during our trek through space.”

“Of course.”

_Jo and space…_

Another thing on a long list of things that Leonard wasn’t pleased about.  His treks through space had been anything but safe.  

Somehow they seemed to attract danger like a magnet to metal.

“We have been promised safe missions.  No first contact and nothing close to the neutral zones.”

_Jim was not going to like this._

“They will mainly be survey missions and diplomatic meetings with members of the Federation or those close to joining the Federation.”

“We shouldn’t be more than a week from Earth at all times.”

Eldena stepped forward.

“I can understand your worry.  Your children will be there.”

_Children…_

A part of himself still hadn’t wrapped his head around the fact that Jo wouldn’t be his only child soon.

“The admiralty has promised they won’t send us anywhere dangerous.  The Defiant is a fine ship.  A twin of the Enterprise, she’ll serve us well while the Enterprise is being repaired.”

He had seen the damages sustained by the Enterprise after the Khan fiasco. Even after all these months, he still had nightmares of those last few hours.

Of falling to Earth…

Of Jim’s body, cold and lifeless, in a body bag…

It would be another few months before she would be fixed.

“It’s not the Enterprise, but the public won’t notice.”

Leonard didn’t doubt _that._  

He could tell the public’s fascination was with her crew, mainly her captain, and not the Enterprise.  He knew because this was one point Scotty frequently lamented to him about during their drinking meetups.

He wasn’t sure when it happened.  When he and Scotty became drinking buddies, Leonard figured it was because they were the oldest of the command crew and both had to deal with their overzealous captain.

It also meant Leonard was frequently subjugated to engineering parlance that went over his head.

“We ship out in two days.”  She looked at him once more before leaving.

_Two days…_

He should have known.  His schedule had been magically cleared from that point on wards.  Of course Starfleet wasn't going to give them any breathing time.

It was barely enough time for him to review his medical team and check inventory.

_God damnit._

 

XXXXXXXXXX

 

He made it onto the Defiant the next day with Jo.  She had begged to come along.  He didn’t have the energy to say 'no', and anyways she would be there the next day anyways when they left.  

It would give him time to show her around, not that he knew what the Defiant looked like.

Eldena had insisted they were the same…

However the moment the shuttle reached the Defiant, he knew because he heard Jo’s gasp.  For once her head wasn’t buried in her PADD.

He could tell the Defiant was a near twin of the Enterprise.  As the shuttle landed, and they were given clearance, he took Jo’s hand.  She pulled a face the one that said ‘I’m not a baby, Daddy’, but Leonard ignored it.  If the inner workings of the Defiant was anything like the Enterprise, then it was full of dangerous places.  Places Jo could get stuck or hurt or lost in.  He pushed aside the fact that he wouldn’t be able to watch her while he was on shift, because he was CMO.  Even for this publicity stunt, he was still CMO and had duties.  He mentally reminded himself to think of somewhere for her to spend her time at.

“Come on, let’s go to our quarters.”  Before he could take more than a few more steps, he hears his name being called out,  “Dr.  McCoy.”  

He stopped and turned.  Janice Rand, with her always impressive hairstyle, was running towards them.  She was holding a PADD.

“Janice.”

“Leonard.”  She smiled at Jo.  “And this must be Joanna.  I’m Yeoman Rand, the captain’s personal yeoman.”  He nudged Jo.

“Pleased to meet you.”  She beamed.

“Sweet girl you got there Leonard. Congratulations! .  I knew you and Jim would finally get there.  I’m so happy for you both.”  

Leonard blinked.  Then the realization slowly dawned on him.  

_Fuck…_

Because of course the crew would have heard.  He was plastered everywhere.

And of course they would offer their congratulations, and be happy for them.  That made his stomach churn.  The same way it had before Jim had told Jo the truth.

She covered her mouth.  “I mean…”

“Thanks, Janice.”

Janice beamed.  “Here are your room assignments.  I would show you where they are…”

Leonard took them.  “I’m sure I can find them.  Thank you.”

“Of course.  Good day, Leonard.”

“You too.”

With that Janice turned and left.  He looked down at Jo who was giving him a ‘seriously’ look.

He chose to ignore it because there wasn’t anything he could say.  He didn't know what to say.

He was on the lift, before he looked at the room assignment.  It was then he noticed it wasn’t his room or floor.  Even though, he managed to convince himself it was because different starships had different naming systems, there was similarly a part of himself that didn’t believe it.

Because this was Starfleet…

As much as it was about exploration and new races and worlds, it was still big on conformity.  Also, there was a part of his mind that couldn’t deny that the number seemed familiar.

He should have realized.

He should have known when he stood in front of the door and keyed it in.  He shouldn’t had to have waited for the door to slide open to realize.

There was a reason the room number was familiar.

A reason it wasn't the number he was accustomed it.

“Whoa!”  Jo’s eyes widened as they stepped inside.  

Because this was _Jim’s_ room, the captain’s quarters…

And really, he should have known…

Of course space and starships wouldn’t be enough the stop their facade.  Of course he wasn’t going to be assigned the standard CMO quarters.

Of course, he would be staying here.

And it wasn’t even that he had never stayed here.  

Because he had…

When he and Jim had been drinking deep into gamma shift, he had fallen asleep on Jim’s couch.

But he always had a room to go back to.  A place of his own… in San Francisco, he could convince himself it was _their_ apartment.  Although a part of him knew, they had only been given such a nice apartment because of Jim’s position.  But here on the Defiant, it was different.

Because this was definitely the captain’s quarters.

Jim’s quarters…

“Daddy, can we see the rest of the ship now?”  

Jo’s voice pulled him from his thoughts.  He placed their bags in the corner.  He would deal with that later when Jim was around.  

“Yeah.  Come on.”

He took her to the quartermaster and set her up with her own food card.  

“I can order anything?”  Jo looked at it with wide eyes as Leonard handed it to her.  A part of him was definitely regretting not putting a restriction on her card, but she wasn’t going to be here long.

“Anything the food synthesizer can make.”

Jo wiggled her nose.

Jocelyn had never been a fan of synthesized food.  She had always been a big proponent for grown food.

“It’s not that bad, Ms. McCoy.  The blocks come in different colors.”

She whipped her head upwards at Leonard.  There was a slight look of horror in her eyes.

“Thank you.”  He said before leading her away.

“Daddy?”

“It’s not that bad, Jo.”  

She didn’t look convinced but didn’t say anything else.

Her mood drastically improved when he took her up to the observation deck.  Her eyes seemed to positively light up when the doors slid open.  

For a second Leonard was transported to a different time and place.

To when he and Jo were younger…

To a mid summer’s day at the beach…

When Jo, still a toddler with pigtails and missing teeth, had pointed to the sky with her chubby little hands, and said ‘tar’.

“Stars, Daddy,” she turned and looked at him with all the happiness in the world.

And for the first time in ages, Leonard smiled.

 


	16. Chapter 16

He’s definitely not avoiding Jim.

He keeps telling himself that.  They don’t spend the night on the Enterprise because he likes being on Terra Firma, not because he knows Jim will spend the night on the Enterprise because he loves his ship.  Leonard thinks warily that of all the things in Jim’s life, his truest love might just be his silver lady.

And that is why he has to do what he has to do.  It’s just a matter of telling Jim, and that… that is something he doesn’t want to think about.  He knows it's wrong.  That he is just delaying the inevitable.  

Then there is Jo, who is almost too excited to sleep.  

_The stars; Daddy, they are so bright._

_She’s so pretty._

_We’re really going to live here?_

She’s been so excited that she doesn't touch her PADD once while they're on the Enterprise, which is a first.

She’s so excited that for once in a long time, because she’s older now and not a baby, Leonard reads her a story from one of her PADDs.  

As she snuggles against his side, her eyes wide as he reads the words, there is a slight tug on his heartstrings.  Of all the things that he has missed in her life.  Of reading to Jo, of watching her grow up into the pre teen that she is.

As he reaches the last words of the chapter, Jo looks at him.

“Can we do this again?”

“Of course.”  He kisses the top of her head.

“And with Jim next time?”  

He freezes.  He’s surprised Jo asked _that_. Because since Jo’s been here, Leonard won’t say that Jim has been ignoring her.  He also won’t say that he’s taken much interest in her either.

“You like Jim?”

“I do.  I think he’s nice and cares about you a lot, Daddy.  I think he’s just confused and lost.”

“When my little girl get so wise?”  Leonard kisses her again.  He nuzzles against her cheeks.

Jo giggles.  “That tickles, Daddy!”  She squeaks.

“Really?  What about here!”  Leonard tickles her belly causing her to roar with laughter.  She eventually pushes Leonard away.  

Leonard notices as she tries to hold back a yawn.  “Love you daddy.”

“Love you too, baby girl.”  He kisses her once more.  He tucks her in as if she is still a little girl.  He waits untill her eyes flutter shut before turning off the light and closing the door.  

He goes back to his room.  It’s then that he realizes that most of Jim’s things are gone.  His side of the closet and dresser have been emptied out.

_Jim's side…_

Since the beginning, dating back to their Academy days, he and Jim had always seemed to mold together perfectly well.

They had slipped into that almost domestic life like they had belonged.  Like they had been doing it for years.

It felt right.

Leonard shakes that thought away, the one he had been chasing for years.  He knows Jim doesn’t want commitment, doesn’t want to bond.  He has known it for years and even a baby, _their son_ , wasn’t going to change _that_.

It is why he’s doing what he’s doing.

He pulls off his shirt and pants and slips into bed.  However sleep doesn’t come easy.

Jo’s words roll in his head.

_He’s hurt and confused._

_He’s lost._

He needs to do better.

Jim might not be _his_ omega, but he is his best friend.  

As much as it terrifies him, as much as he doesn’t want to open up the fabled Pandora’s box, he knows he has to.

Jim is his best friend.  He owes him that much.

He feels like he has barely closed his eyes before his alarm goes off.  He takes a long shower.  It’ll be his last for awhile.  

Water in space is a precious commodity.

When he’s changed into his uniform, he finds Jo already awake and in the living room.  She’s wide eyed and excited as he fixes them both breakfast.

“Can we go see the bridge today?”  

She looks at him expectedly, like she’s testing him.

Because that is where Jim is.

“Didn’t you like the rest of the ship?”

“Yeah…”

The ‘but’ is on the tip of her tongue.  He wishes he could have claimed credit for her politeness but it’s all Jocelyn and his grandma.

“But it’s not the bridge.”  He finishes for her.

“Yeah.”

“We’ll see.”  It’s all he says before he sets down her breakfast in front of her.

Jo purses her lips but doesn’t say anything else on the matter.

However because he’s lost control of his life since this all started.  Because he just went along with it, of course the moment they are shuttled back onto the Enterprise Eldena and Maximus are waiting for them.  They are all smiles as they are escorted to the bridge.  

Because of course everyone wants to see pictures of their smiling faces on the bridge…

Because of course everyone in the Federation cares about their personal lives…

He feels his breath catch when he sees Jim on the bridge.  His back is turned to him.  He’s talking to Spock.

For a second, one brief second Leonard almost succeeds in fooling himself that everything that has happened since Khan is one big, horrible dream.

That Jim will turn around and beam at him.  That he’ll slap a hand on his shoulder and tease him about one thing or another.

Of course the world isn’t that friendly.

He feels a tug on the hem of his uniform.  He looks down and sees Jo standing next to him expectedly.  She’s bouncing on the bottom of her heels.  

At least one of them is excited, he thinks warily.

He steps onto the bridge.  He keeps his grip on Jo’s hand.  

Because this is a starship and the bridge is the center of it all.  

Jim does turn.  He’s in his command gold.  Here on his silver lady, it suits him well.  Even the swell of their growing baby seems to be dwarfed by it all.  Here it’s not as obvious.  Here in his element, he looks like he’s barely showing.

A surge of momentary panic courses through him.  That doctor side of him, that alpha side of him, that he’s not in control.  With Jocelyn, he had been there for every appointment, every screening, every moment, he knew how Jo was growing, developing.  With this baby, he doesn't know any of it.  The most he can do is slip prenatal vitamins into Jim’s drinks.

It is one of the only things he is looking forward to about being back on the ship.  That he is CMO.  That he is in charge of all the senior command crew’s physicals.

Leonard notices how Jim’s smile falters for a moment.  He’s not naive enough to think it isn’t due at him.

“Wow, daddy.  Is that a wrap around view screen?!”  Jo exclaims.  He didn’t even notice that somehow Jo had gotten out of his grip.   She has instead run to the front of the bridge where Sulu and Chekov are.  There are amused looks on the two’s faces.

“Sure is, Jo.”

He’s surprised it’s Jim who has answered.  He goes to Jo and sets his hand on her shoulder.  

“Do you like my ship, Jo?”

Jo looks up.  “Yes, sir!”

They all laugh when she salutes him.  The heels of her shoes click together.  He’s surprised Jim returns the salute, a smile, one that lately has been missing from his face, tugs at the corner of his lips.  

“Captain, all personal present and accounted for.”  

“Excellent, lieutenant.”  Jim says.  

Leonard notices how everyone in the room straightens a little, like they are ready to head out into space again.

He’s surprised when Jim bends down, whispers something in Jo’s ear. She looks up at him with big hazel eyes.  He nods.

It soon becomes clear what Jim has said when it’s Jo, not Jim, who sits in the chair.  Jim hovers close by.  He nods to her again.  She sits up straighter than Leonard has ever seen her do before.  She puffs out her chest.  She shoots him a grin before taking a deep breath.  “Mr. Sulu, take us out.”

“Sir?” The apprehension is evident in Sulu’s voice.

“You heard the little lady.”  Jim winks at Jo.  

“Yes sir.”

And with that, the ship who isn’t the Enterprise, moves.  The stars around them part as they sail through the cosmos to wherever Starfleet has decided to sent them.

And with that, Leonard takes a deep breath.


End file.
